I know ORIENTAL is impolite, but what does ORIENTAL refer to?

Question

Is it just East Asians or can it also be Southeast Asian. I know it is rude, and I don't mean any offense as I am East Asian, but I am just curious to what it would refer to if it did refer to people.

Answer 1

It's based on ancient mariner charts where eastern Mediterranean /Egypt region was picked to divide Eastern realms (Oriental) from Western continents (Occidental). Russia and Africa were often disregarded or ambiguous in this scheme.

Answer 2

Oriental, meaning, to be from the Orient. Spans back to when the oldddden days... westerns referred to the faraway, newly discovered and exotic places as the Orient. I guess over time it's gone from something neutral to something good to something bad. Either way, you have to be cautious these days how you call a group of any type of people

Answer 3

Oriental literally means "eastern". Just as Occidental literally means "western." My guess as to why it is considered bad is that it first of all defines people in reference to westerners, rather than based on themselves--because they're east of "us". It also calls up all kinds of stereotypes and such. So the word "Asian" is preferred, as it defines people in absolute terms as where they're from, rather than in reference to another group. It's like as if you yourself didn't have your own name, but instead were just called "Bobby'sbrother", and all references to you talked about you in relation to Bobby, rather than your own identity.

Answer 4

Calling a person Oriental is insensitive because it lumps Chinese, Japanese, Vietnamese, Korean, and others into one category when they are very distinct nationalities.

Originally, the Orient was the middle east and Egypt. But it generally mean the east - as viewed by western counties. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Oriental

Answer 5

The East Asian Mongoloid culture...

Answer 6

It refers to Eastern Asian.

Answer 7

I think its east ... idk

Answer 8

back then they used to bring rugs to the states like a long time ago and people would call them orientals because they came from asia, so people from asia are orientals.

Answer 9

When did the stupid poiticically correct twits decide oriental was an impolite word?  The word is slightly more descriptive than Asian, but not as descriptive as an ethnic nationality... such as Japanese, Chinese, Korean.  Then again the orient has typically refered to the East Asian area.

The unbounded ignorance of our younger generations makes me want to plain puke. Anyone that thinks oriental is offensive has been brain washed by the new speak crowd.

Answer 10

Oriental is a 19th century that refers to the lands from turkey and onward east and is described as being "exotic"  Its is an extremely ethnocentric word cause it implies certain stereotypes of the east and implied that westerners actually were somewhat superior.

Answer 11

So-o-o-o-o, who said Oriental is impolite? I work with many Oriental folks and they have never said it bothered them when referred to that way.