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Circa89 · 05-14-2006, 11:02 PM

I noticed that your post listed Asians as a "race card".

A while back a got an ear full because I refered to someone from China as Oriental.
My question is when did oriental become an inappropriate word?

Here is my reasoning in greater detail.

My first choice would have been to refer to the gentleman by his name. Since I did not know this my second option would have been his country of origin. Since I did not know his country of Origin it would have been arrogant and rude of me to refer to him as Chinese. If he was from HongKong, Taiwan, or Tibet it is definetly not the same thing. It's like when I travel to Europe and they refer to me as American and I correct them. The usual response is "same thing" No its not!

Now I realise that "Asian" is the prefered terminiology. But it is a horrible descriptor.
Nik Antropov from Kahzakstan is Asian. So is anyone from Afgahnistan, Japan, India, Siberia. I mean these people are all from Asia, the Largest Land mass on Earth yet have vastly different genotypic physical characteristics.

My point was that Oriental means "eastern" but is generally assumed to mean "the Far East" or "South Eastern Asia". Is that not a better descriptor than Asian?

Like I said I would prefer not to refer to someone as anything else other than their name or possible country of origin however real life situations sometime do not afford us the luxury.

I apoligize again if I insulted anyone with the oriental reference. I did not realise there were negative connotations associated with it. Are there???

05-14-2006, 11:02 PM	#49
Circa89 Scoring Winger Join Date: Nov 2005 Exp:	I noticed that your post listed Asians as a "race card". A while back a got an ear full because I refered to someone from China as Oriental. My question is when did oriental become an inappropriate word? Here is my reasoning in greater detail. My first choice would have been to refer to the gentleman by his name. Since I did not know this my second option would have been his country of origin. Since I did not know his country of Origin it would have been arrogant and rude of me to refer to him as Chinese. If he was from HongKong, Taiwan, or Tibet it is definetly not the same thing. It's like when I travel to Europe and they refer to me as American and I correct them. The usual response is "same thing" No its not! Now I realise that "Asian" is the prefered terminiology. But it is a horrible descriptor. Nik Antropov from Kahzakstan is Asian. So is anyone from Afgahnistan, Japan, India, Siberia. I mean these people are all from Asia, the Largest Land mass on Earth yet have vastly different genotypic physical characteristics. My point was that Oriental means "eastern" but is generally assumed to mean "the Far East" or "South Eastern Asia". Is that not a better descriptor than Asian? Like I said I would prefer not to refer to someone as anything else other than their name or possible country of origin however real life situations sometime do not afford us the luxury. I apoligize again if I insulted anyone with the oriental reference. I did not realise there were negative connotations associated with it. Are there???