{"id":45,"date":"2007-04-24T21:00:47","date_gmt":"2007-04-25T05:00:47","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/rayivey.com\/wordpress\/?p=45"},"modified":"2007-04-24T21:03:07","modified_gmt":"2007-04-25T05:03:07","slug":"an-occidental-rant","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/www.rayivey.com\/wordpress\/an-occidental-rant\/","title":{"rendered":""},"content":{"rendered":"\"Facebook\"<\/a>\"twitter\"<\/a>\"rss\"<\/a>\"instagram\"<\/a>

For generations, Westerners referred to the lands and people of the Far East of Asia as “Oriental.”\u00a0 This term meant nothing more than the opposite of “occidental.”\u00a0 Oriental means east.\u00a0 Occidental means west.\u00a0 Nothing more than that.<\/p>\n

Somewhere along the way it was decided by the PC gurus that “Oriental” was somehow offensive.\u00a0 I still haven’t quite figured out why.\u00a0 What is racist about a direction?<\/p>\n

But no one can fight the intertia of PC, I guess.\u00a0 My problem lies with the term which was chosen to replace “Oriental.”<\/p>\n

You know the word I mean.\u00a0 Asian.\u00a0 It has become a very hip word.<\/p>\n

The trouble is, it’s not nearly specific enough.\u00a0 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.\u00a0 They mean that the person is from the far eastern Pacific Rim of Asia.<\/p>\n

Guess what?\u00a0 Pakistanis are Asian.\u00a0So are Iraqis.\u00a0 So are Indians and Israelis.\u00a0 All Asian.\u00a0 But you never hear someone from Iran or Lebanon described as Asian, even though they are just as Asian as someone from Vietnam.<\/p>\n

So either give us back Oriental, or come up with a better term than “Asian, ” if you don’t really mean “Asian.”<\/p>\n

I’d suggest use of the term “Pacific Rim, ” but of course that sounds way too much like a gay porno title.<\/p>\n

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