do asian people get offended if you call them 'oriental'?

Question

i innocently called a chinese girl oriental once, and she went all bruce lee on me, saying "oliental is rike furniture, or food you round eye!"
while she kick boxed my ears in.

Answer 1

there is nothing wrong about it.
The word orient comes from the latin word ''oriens'' meaning ''East''

Orient could be used for countries of Asia.
Also we use it in art to describe some painters as ''Orientalists''.That means the painter from the west(Europe) came to east and painted the life of middle-easterns or Asians.

Maybe that has a bad meaning in Chinese which is a very tiny probability.(I guess that girl was looking out for a reason to kick you ;) )

Answer 2

no not everyone does b/c it doesn't contain any negative meanings. But one of my clients didn't remember my name and told my co-worker that an oriental girl was helping her. My co-worker,who is a Caucasian, criticized her after she left and said it's not right to call me an oriental.


But I don't know know what you mean by 'she went all Bruce lee on me, while she kick boxed my ears in'. Did you innocently write this comments about an Asian person?
sounds like calling her an' Oriental' isn't the only reason she got mad at you.....................................................?????????

Answer 3

Same as any descriptive comment about people, depends on how sensitive they are. I used "oriental" once at work where there are several Chinese co-workers. It didn't go over well with one of them. I personally don't mind being called a "kraut" or anything else for that matter, unless it is meant in a derogatory way. But now that you have been educated (as was I), best to steer clear of using it to describe ethnicity.

Answer 4

the word 'oriental' is not racist per se. but if you're intentionally using it to point out that someone (or something) is oriental in a discriminating manner, then they have every right to be offended.

maybe that chinese girl just didn't like to be referered to as 'oriental'. perhaps she would have acted the same way even if you used a different word like 'asian'. either way, i'd steer clear of using words that label different ethinicities, especially to that person's face. this is in order to stay politically correct and to make sure no one is offended or get's their ears kickboxed in.

Answer 5

I say Oriental is in.
People always try to stop me too, and I say, why not? And then they look at me dimly, and admit they dunno.

They want me to call them north south east and west Asian, pan pacific, Korean, Vietnamese, Chinese, Thai, Hawaiin, Tawaneese, Falun Gong, Tai Chi and all that. I don't got the GDM time.

Oriental lives on forever..
Except Japanese, they are different. I call them Japaneese.

Answer 6

"Oriental" refers to objects from China. Not People.

Answer 7

oriental is offensive because it's the name that white folks gave them. calling a Asian oriental is like calling a black person a n!gger!

Answer 8

It helps in case you realize what "orient" potential. It potential 'the east.' And, particular, China, Japan, Korea are EAST of EUROPE. it rather is the place the attitude originated from -- Europe. Asia isn't east of the US and it easily isn't east of Asia. So Asians are indignant which you view them from a ecu attitude, whilst they like to be considered from their own attitude. nicely, won't be able to you relate? Asia is the accepted call of the continent China, Japan, Korea, etc., are placed on. in simple terms like the country is on the North American continent. in the event that they like to be referred to as Asians, I recommend you do this. you do not prefer to be referred to as something different than what you prefer to be referred to as, do you?

Answer 9

It's an offensive word to asians, but not the worse one.

Answer 10

that was good. you need to get smacked in the face once in a while