# General Discussion > Opinions >  oriental or asian?

## bossel

Oriental or Asian?
Well, I suppose if you talk about races it is best to use the scientific names such as mongoloid, europid/caucasoid, negroid a.s.o.

If you talk of ethnic origin, you can use the nation's, tribe's or similar name.
Asian or Oriental doesn't make much difference to me. Asian means "someone from Asia", Oriental "someone from the East, where the sun rises".

BTW, in Germany the term "Orientale" implies someone from the Near/Middle East, not East Asia. These implications are always dependent on the usage.

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## EscaFlowne

> _Originally posted by Golgo_13_ 
> *It depends on where you are. While growing up in the U.S. I've noticed that most Oriental girls went out of their way to date white guys. There was definitely some self-hatred going on regarding one's own race. One gal once said that dating an Oriental guy is almost like dating your own brother.
> 
> On the other hand, if you're in Japan a white guy may not always get 20 points right away for being white. Perhaps because most women in Japan don't speak such good English and it would be too much of a hassle to date a guy who didn;t speak Japanese too well.
> 
> If you noticed, I don't use the term "Asian" to describe the Mongoloid race. I use the old-fashioned "Oriental." To me "Asian" is improper since there are people of different races living in Asia and Chinese, Japanese and Koreans have no right to claim that they;re the only Asians. Also, "Asian" only refers to a geographical location rather than a racial category and therefore it perpetuates the stereotype of Orientals in the U.S. as foreignors ("Where are you from?" "Do you speak any English?"). Many of us who are U.S. citizens wnat to be considered and treated as legitimate Americans. If you called a white person a "European", he would most likely respond, "I'm NOT a European, I'm an American." To refer to such a person as European is to treat him as a foreignor and that is improper. Likewise, I am NOT an Asian. I am an American of the Oriental race. 
> 
> BTW, many blacks do not want to be called "African-American" and many Indians do not like to be called "Native-Americans".*



Not no many african-american don't want to be called that. they do or just black. I know i'm right on this and can speak on it. alll these scientific terms erks me....see you later. :Poh:

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## bossel

Well, the scientific terms may not sound nice, but at least (to me) there are no associations or implications other than the biological content. But, then again, if used widely, these terms would very probably adopt diverse implications.
German saying: "No matter how you do it, you do it wrong."

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## destiny

that's exactly the right saying for this situation. *nods*

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## Gaki

> _Originally posted by Golgo_13_ 
> *
> 
> If you noticed, I don't use the term "Asian" to describe the Mongoloid race. I use the old-fashioned "Oriental." To me "Asian" is improper since there are people of different races living in Asia and Chinese, Japanese and Koreans have no right to claim that they;re the only Asians. Also, "Asian" only refers to a geographical location rather than a racial category and therefore it perpetuates the stereotype of Orientals in the U.S. as foreignors ("Where are you from?" "Do you speak any English?").*


I dont like the term Oriental, it's an incorrect term to describe us. 
In UK we are Oriental and Indians / Bengalis / Pakistanis are Asians...

How in the world they worked that out, i dont know...

Considering :

1. China basically is more than half of the area of Asia.
2. The Chinese population is basically half the population of Asia.

Did we lose some sort of war or something....

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## Mayura

> _Originally posted by Gaki_ 
> *I dont like the term Oriental, it's an incorrect term to describe us. 
> In UK we are Oriental and Indians / Bengalis / Pakistanis are Asians...
> 
> How in the world they worked that out, i dont know...
> 
> Considering :
> 
> 1. China basically is more than half of the area of Asia.
> ...




guess that's true.. I don't know how they worked that out either...
no, I don't think chinese losed any war or so..  :Confused:  
but your points are kinda rigth! ;)

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## Golgo_13

> _Originally posted by Gaki_ 
> *I dont like the term Oriental, it's an incorrect term to describe us. 
> In UK we are Oriental and Indians / Bengalis / Pakistanis are Asians...
> 
> How in the world they worked that out, i dont know...
> 
> Considering :
> 
> 1. China basically is more than half of the area of Asia.
> ...


So do you want all Oriental people to be called "Chinese"? When I was a kid most stupid kids thought all Orientals were Chinese.

I get your point. However, "Asian" is wholly inappropriate to be used as a racial category since people of different races live in Asia. You cannot use "American" as a race (even though some ignorant people do) because America is made up of different races. If you use a geographical term like "Asia" to refer to a race, all other races would have to be called by the continent they originate in, e.g., whites=Europeans, blacks=Africans, American Indians=North Americans, etc.

We have always been referred to as Orientals among the English-speaking world. No one ever complained until the last decade. If Oriental is so wrong, I guess the only other "correct" option is "Mongoloid". Would you like that? Doesn't that almost sound like we all suffer from Down's Syndrome?

Let's stick with the lesser of all evils and be Orientals.

BTW, I once wrote a piece in the Rafu Shimpo, a Los Angeles-area newspaper for the Japanese-American community regarding this issue. I received many positive feedback from readers who agreed with me that they want to be called Oriental, not Asian, but were afraid to speak out.

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## Gaki

> _Originally posted by Golgo_13_ 
> *So do you want all Oriental people to be called "Chinese"? When I was a kid most stupid kids thought all Orientals were Chinese.
> 
> I get your point. However, "Asian" is wholly inappropriate to be used as a racial category since people of different races live in Asia. You cannot use "American" as a race (even though some ignorant people do) because America is made up of different races. If you use a geographical term like "Asia" to refer to a race, all other races would have to be called by the continent they originate in, e.g., whites=Europeans, blacks=Africans, American Indians=North Americans, etc.
> 
> We have always been referred to as Orientals among the English-speaking world. No one ever complained until the last decade. If Oriental is so wrong, I guess the only other "correct" option is "Mongoloid". Would you like that? Doesn't that almost sound like we all suffer from Down's Syndrome?
> 
> Let's stick with the lesser of all evils and be Orientals.
> 
> BTW, I once wrote a piece in the Rafu Shimpo, a Los Angeles-area newspaper for the Japanese-American community regarding this issue. I received many positive feedback from readers who agreed with me that they want to be called Oriental, not Asian, but were afraid to speak out.*


I didnt mean all "Orientals" should be called Chinese  :Poh:  

What i was saying was that i didnt like the fact that "Orientals" were thrown into a whole new group, we do have our place in Asia and i think it's wrong that we were thrown out of that group. 

I was speaking with my Japanese friend once, and she didnt even know what to consider an "Oriental" person because she's never encountered this type of segregation. 
It would probably be the same for a Chinese person, since in Chinese we refer to ourselves as Asian. 

Although i do understand what you are saying about the term Asian to be too broad, normally if someone asks i'll say i'm "Oriental" to avoid confusion, but i still dont like how we were thrown out of the Asian group. =P

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## Golgo_13

> _Originally posted by Gaki_ 
> *
> What i was saying was that i didnt like the fact that "Orientals" were thrown into a whole new group, we do have our place in Asia and i think it's wrong that we were thrown out of that group. 
> 
> I was speaking with my Japanese friend once, and she didnt even know what to consider an "Oriental" person because she's never encountered this type of segregation. 
> 
> i still dont like how we were thrown out of the Asian group. =P*


You're still missing the point. It's not even about a "GROUP." You use the term "Asian group" to avoid implying race, but that's exactly what this is about.

I know people don't like to discuss race, but let's be honest, people are of different races. There's nothing wrong with having different racial categories. It's only wrong to discriminate based on race.

The Chinese and the Indians both live in Asia, true. But are they of the same race? No. To say that everyone living in Asia is of the same race called "Asian" makes no sense at all.

To refer to the people who are of the Mongoloid race, e.g., Chinese, Japanese, Koreans, the word "Oriental" has been used as the less technical term, much like "white" and "black" have been used instead of Caucasoid or Negroid.

However, there is no official term used term to refer to the race of the aforementioned Indians/Bengalis/Pakistanis people, so "Asian" has been used for them (only in UK, not in US). Perhaps there should be a separate category for them, but that's how it is.

Nuff sed.

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## Mandylion

> _Originally posted by Golgo_13_ 
> * Most people who don't like that term (oriental) doesn't like being one, so they try to avoid being an Oriental by using a different term. It's the same thing as fat people. They hate the word "fat" so much that they try to avoid being fat by using words such as "large", "full-figured" and "Rubenesque."
> 
> Nuff sed.*


I'm afraid that is a bit too broad for me to be comfortable letting slip by. I don't think "most people" who don't want to be called oriental hate their ethnicity. I think that is a flawed conclusion to jump to simply when someone says "don't call me oriental." Like our German friends said, a lot of it goes towards the context and the social environment the label gets used (as to if a phrase or word is insulting). You are okay with being identified as oriental, but to many it is a derogatory term. Just because you don't like how some people choose classify you doesn't mean you are loaded with self-hate (and the same goes for fat people too, the difference is that calling someone "fat" has many fewer shades of gray on the insult-o-meter than calling someone "oriental." The words may envoke similar reactions and emotions, but I think the root causes and associations of such is different to a great extent). 

Just my two cents/yen/wampum - M

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## jeisan

ive split this thread as these posts should have their own thread. 

on a side note oriental is an even broader term than asian as it simply means eastern...

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## Mandylion

Thanks Jeisan!

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## Gaki

> _Originally posted by Golgo_13_ 
> *
> 
> To refer to the people who are of the Mongoloid race, e.g., Chinese, Japanese, Koreans, the word "Oriental" has been used as the less technical term, much like "white" and "black" have been used instead of Caucasoid or Negroid.
> 
> *



You know back in the day the less technical term was "Yellow".

Do you know why ? Because we (Chinese people) whilst we were building the railroads, stuck to ourselves and tried to stay out of trouble, so we were called "Yellow" meaning cowardly. 
We dont stick these labels on ourselves, so i dont see why we should use them. 

Like it's been mentioned the term "Oriental" is as broad as saying "Asian". 
Phillipinos are "Oriental" too, but they dont look that similar to Japanese / Korean / Chinese.

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## Elizabeth

> _Originally posted by Golgo_13_ 
> *You're still missing the point. It's not even about a "GROUP." You use the term "Asian group" to avoid implying race, but that's exactly what this is about.
> 
> I know people don't like to discuss race, but let's be honest, people are of different races. There's nothing wrong with having different racial categories. It's only wrong to discriminate based on race.
> 
> The Chinese and the Indians both live in Asia, true. But are they of the same race? No. To say that everyone living in Asia is of the same race called "Asian" makes no sense at all.*


I may be missing something, but I have never considered "Asian" as a racial term and actually in English the "ian" suffix implies only nationality. Oriental is technically broader as well, originally I believe covering Eastern Europe (Eastern third of the old Roman Empire), to the Near East/North Africa and then the Asian continent proper.

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## Iron Chef

When I hear "Oriental" I think of either a rug or instant cup noodles...
:)

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## Elizabeth

I actually think of Saudi Arabia or Iran first per the story of the Biblical Wise Men from the East or travel packages to the mysterious Orient.....but then there is that recent movement by many original inhabitants of this country to be called "Indian" again rather than "Native American" even though they obviously have no direct connection to the country. So I just try to stay in step with the latest incarnations and don't really try to reason anymore from there. It must just be one of those things you can't really understand until you've lived it :).

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## Mayura

:Mad:  why is this getting so complicated??!
I feel like droping down my chair.. -.-

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## teardrop

Hmm... Mayura ... if you are really interested, try reading Edward Said's book on Orientalism. I guess you will get a clearer picture of the concept then...

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## Mayura

don't they both actually mean the same??
I mean, Asian = ppl from asia
orienal = ppl from the east
or am I wrong??

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## jeisan

kinda but oriental refers to anyone/anything from the eastern hemisphere while asian would be anyone/anything from asia...

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## Eisuke

I think East Asian sounds beter then Oriental.  :Laughing:

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## Mayura

.... but... then asia would be more acurrate, wouldn't it?

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## bossel

Accuracy is something hard to achieve if you want to talk about races without scientific terminology. Actually, in day-to-day conversation I use the term East-Asian when I refer to Chinese, Japanese et al., for too many people don't even know the scientific terms (just like Golgo said before: mongoloid = Down-syndrome???). 

Labels are almost always in-accurate because they generalize. East-Asian isn't really exact either, just thinking of the Ainu in Japan, & where to draw the line between E-, SE- & NE-Asia. 
But, hell, as long as people know what I'm talking about...

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## Mayura

ah... but c'mon, Asia is a continent, isn't it, so why can't just everybody in it or maybe from there be called like that??? x.x

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## bossel

Mayura, of course you can call every Asian Asian, but the question is, what the one you talk to understands when hearing it. 
It's not really very specific,with so many different peoples, ethnicities & cultures in Asia.

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## Mayura

it's.. not?
well.. I grew up, being told so... ^^;

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## Golgo_13

Why don't we have a poll on this?

"If you are an Oriental/Asian what would you consider your racial category to be?"

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## Iron Chef

I consider myself an Asian-American (born outside the U.S. and with dual citizenship but having resided in America for most of my formative years). Beyond that, I try not to read anything else into it.

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## Mayura

I would choose asian... ^^

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## EscaFlowne

> _Originally posted by Iron Chef_ 
> *I consider myself an Asian-American (born outside the U.S. and with dual citizenship but having resided in America for most of my formative years). Beyond that, I try not to read anything else into it.*


those are some cool quotes....and true.

[rubs stabs wounds from ex-friends who were wrong.]

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## Bahamut

I have thought about this subject before. My roots ,so to speak are, Native American and Irish. I looked at it with an open mind tring to figure out which classification of Native American or Indian was more correct and polite and PC and all that and I came up with, both are fine to me but maybe to someone from a different tribe it is a really big deal. They are just words and have only as much meaning as we put in them. As long as its not used in a derogitory way I don't mind what you call me. But for now I think I will just be called human. That is about as general as I can get without steping on someones toes.

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## lexico

> In Germany the term "Orientale" implies someone from the Near/Middle East, not East Asia.


What I'd like to know is this: Was the word uttered within a sentence in German or in English?

In West Coast US, calling a Chinese Oriental used to be widespread in the past, but some Chinese would resent that because they feel insulted. Of course it's a neutral term, but some peoplde actually put an effort into avoid using "oriental." The preferred usage would be "She's Asian," and this is probably another case of the proliferating politically correct usage. I would assume Germany would not have this strange distinction becasue the two words have distinct definitions. Right?

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## bossel

> What I'd like to know is this: Was the word uttered within a sentence in German or in English?[...]I would assume Germany would not have this strange distinction becasue the two words have distinct definitions. Right?


_Der Orientale/die Orientalin_ are the German words for persons from the NE/ME, _orientalisch_ is the corresponding adjective. Actually, esp. the adjective can also be used for people from the Far East, but usually it implies NE/ME origin. Whenever you hear someone tell _Geschichten aus dem Orient_ (stories from the orient) you expect to hear something like "1001 Nights".

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## chrisg4

> don't they both actually mean the same??
> I mean, Asian = ppl from asia
> orienal = ppl from the east
> or am I wrong??



Yes i think you are right..

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## Minty

There is another term they have been calling us, "Far Easterners." I don't mind being called East Asian or just Asian.

The word oriental here in France, like in Germany is for the middle Easterners.

I find the French tend to interpret South East Asia as South Asia that is like getting Southern Europeans mixed up with people from South Eastern part of Europe.

There is another thing about people from here, they tend to think if you were born in one country that would mean that you are the ethnic majority of that country, or you must definitely grow up in that country.

For example, I was born in Malaysia but raised in Australia but my ethnic is Chinese. For them an Australian must be born in Australia and some even asked why I wasn't white. I graduated primary, high school and university and not able to speak Malay and I am Australian citizen who says I ain't? 

Then some when I said I was born in Malaysia they assumed I only went overseas to Australia to study and lived there a few years. Then they assumed you are Malaysian, and they believe that is one ethnic. There were some people who weren't satisfied with me being Australian and not white asked me my ethnic origin/s, I replied that I was half Sino Malaysian, half Taiwanese. They said to me what a good mix! 

They can't called me South East Asian because as my origin because my origin is Chinese, but yet I do not come from China. After they heard the word Chinese they started to ask all these questions about China that I couldn't answer. :Indifferent: 
There was once I met an Irish guy who moved here with his two young children because his wife got a job here. He was completely stunned that I could have family from different places. What I don’t get is that if he can move here with his nuclear family, then he obviously still has family back there, then why can’t other people also have that? Even though they need not pay for a business immigration fee like my father did to live in the country they move to legally.

So complicated aren't I? :Laughing: 

For the ones I communicate frequently after half a year, they have started to understand providing every time I speak to them I need to remind them who I am. The ones I don't talk to so frequently after 2 years of classes together still couldn't make sense of who I am. Every time I start a new class history repeats itself. 



Sigh

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## Cambrius (The Red)

I've been told that some people consider the term "Oriental" derogatory.

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## LeBrok

Hey Minty, you defy the human brain structure/way of organising the world around us, that loves to stick a label on you and put you in the right folder. Your life story escapes this logic and confuses people, hehe. You're the real citizen of the world, the global village.

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## Albus

People in the western world associate the words "Asian" and "Oriental" with Mongoloids. They forget that Asia is a huge continent that encorpasses many races and ethic groups.

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## InfamousAngel99

I was raised with the idea that the term "oriental" is oldfashioned and rude, and should not be used.

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