For generations, Westerners referred to the lands and people of the Far East of Asia as “Oriental.” This term meant nothing more than the opposite of “occidental.” Oriental means east. Occidental means west. Nothing more than that.
Somewhere along the way it was decided by the PC gurus that “Oriental” was somehow offensive. I still haven’t quite figured out why. What is racist about a direction?
But no one can fight the intertia of PC, I guess. My problem lies with the term which was chosen to replace “Oriental.”
You know the word I mean. Asian. It has become a very hip word.
The trouble is, it’s not nearly specific enough. People who use the word “Asian” to describe a person do not mean to say that this person is from the continent of Asia generally. They mean that the person is from the far eastern Pacific Rim of Asia.
Guess what? Pakistanis are Asian. So are Iraqis. So are Indians and Israelis. All Asian. But you never hear someone from Iran or Lebanon described as Asian, even though they are just as Asian as someone from Vietnam.
So either give us back Oriental, or come up with a better term than “Asian, ” if you don’t really mean “Asian.”
I’d suggest use of the term “Pacific Rim, ” but of course that sounds way too much like a gay porno title.
Ray –
I suppose what is offensive about “oriental” is not just the strict denotation of the word, but the way “Oriental” and “the Orient” was used to contruct an “other” against which the west (and really, Europe) came to define itself. It came to mean boggling complexity, nefariousness, mystery, ambiguity (sexual, moral, etc.) and a host of other handy abstractions against which Europe, particularly Britain, defined itself. I recommend Edward Said’s book, “Orientalism” which is a cornerstone of much post-colonial cultural studies work.
You can still see the tropes in action today. “300” prolongs the life support provided to the hoary old chestnut that the Greek/Persian war was really the seminal East Vs. West conflict epitomized by manly (and mysteriously unguent) Greeks vs. the effete Xerxes and his freakshow Persians.
As for the rest, I concur that Pacific Rim sounds like a definite niche audience film, but maybe not yet ready for Sundance.
Hey, Ray, true — PC-ness has gotten silly and a lot of the reason is that people don’t understand the background of where a word came from in the first place.
A postscript on your Oriental discourse: Much of the former Soviet Union is also Asian, further widening the label to the point where it’s not much help as a label anyhow.
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Love, Mom
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Love, Mom
Up until a year ago i still called them Oriental. That was until at work we had a student temp who was “Asian”. We were taking about his nationality because i was mentioning to him how i would like to learn Japaneses so i could watch anime without dubbing. But anyways i used the word “oriental” to describe something and his jaw almost dropped like i just called a black person the “N” word. So i asked him what was wrong and i got this big long speech as to why i shouldnt call “Asians” oriental anymore.
Its kind of funny because there are several “Asian” food places around here that describe their cuisine as Oriental. I guess its like black people in that its ok to call their own ran the “N” word but if a white person does it its racism.