BellaOnline Forums Travel and Culture Chinese Culture Is "Orient" a Bad Term?

I was just written at my low carb site from someone who says that calling things in China / Japan "the orient" is like calling African-Americans "negros" and that this is socially unacceptable.

What do you think? I in fact just saw several references to "orient" in the past week alone, from reputable sources ...

I was told by a very pc, liberal person that now "Oriental" (a term I grew up with and have lived with for 40+ years) is bad.

It is now "Asian" from what I understand.

I do not know why and I have never meant to disrespect anyone.

This is funny because I was just discussing this with my mom. She is 61 years old and calls Asians "Orientals" like most people from her generation do. I, however, do not like the term. I don't know if it's the sound of it or what, but to me, it's a bit like still calling African-Americans "coloreds". Just an outdated term and people are becoming a lot more PC. While I totally dislike overly-politically correct people, I have to agree about the term "Oriental".

But calling Asian countries the Orient should be no problem.

I have heard this as well (from my husband, who is Asian -- so I never use the word so that I don't offend him personally).

P.S. - There is a short section on the use of the word "Oriental" in American English at Wikipedia - the page notes (among other things) that "a number of reference works used in the United States describe Oriental as pejorative."

Off topic: What part of Asia is your husband from, Nancy? My boyfriend is originally from China. ^_^

He's Cambodian. (His family came to the U.S. in the early 80s after the whole Khmer Rouge debacle.)

We'd been shopping, and we happened to pass by a stack of (what I called) Oriental rugs. I said something about them, and then he told me that I shouldn't say "Oriental" -- that the word was derogatory.

That was the first time I'd heard that "Oriental" was considered a bad thing to say. I guess it makes sense, though -- it does seem to carry imperialistic overtones, so I can understand why it might be deemed offensive.

Interesting, it would never occur to me to call Oriental Rugs anything but that!

One of my favorite catalogues is the Oriental Trading Company; I never thought of that as a bad name. It seemed a pretty bland name to me if anything ...

How about all the colleges of oriental medicine?

I thought Oriental was only offensive when it was used in reference to people? hmmm *ponders*

I don't mean to make light of it - if it really bothers people I will start changing my terms, but it seems like a HUGE undertaking, to change the entire language like that with all the millions of references ...

That's a good point. On the other hand, terms like "Eskimo pie" and "Washington Redskins" -- an ice cream bar and a football team -- could be deemed offensive, and they don't refer directly to people.