Is oriental racist? Alternatives?

[Voboy]

What I find heartening is that my youngest grandchild goes to a school that has a wide range of nationalities and ethnic origins. The largest group after white British is Japanese. She and her friends don't seem to notice or care about nationality or colour of skin. What matters is who they are and how they behave with others. Several of the Japanese children first come to the school knowing no English at all. They seem to learn more English in the playground than in class. But my just six-year-old granddaughter can talk to a Japanese newcomer in basic Japanese.

At first the newly arrived Japanese children are more wary of black classmates than others. It doesn't seem to last beyond the first week.

This is great news.

I’ve always thanked my lucky stars I grew up where I did. A plurality of my high school was white, but the majority was Koreans and Armenians. And basically, everyone got along. Kids generally don’t care very much, provided their parents don’t.

 

[Bramblethorn]

Not that Wikipedia is particularly reliable, but it says

"The origin of the term is unclear. It was first noted by lexicographer F.C. Bowen in 1929, in his Sea Slang: a dictionary of the old-timers’ expressions and epithets, where he defines wogs as "lower class Babu shipping clerks on the Indian coast."

Yep. This is one of those "backronyms", where people retro-fitted an acronym to a word that already existed.

Rule of thumb, any acronym-based etymology for a pre-WWII word is likely bogus, and definitely so if the word was around before 1900.

(See also: "posh".)

Suggestions that the word is an acronym for "wily Oriental gentleman", "working on government service", or similar, are examples of false etymology. Wikipedia doesn't say why though. In Australia it's used to refer to Southern European, Mediterranean, and Middle Easterners so it's a bit broader that "oriental"

Broader and also narrower - in Australian English it generally refers only to those groups, and not to the others who might be covered by the UK usage. It's also much less offensive in modern Australian usage than it would be in the UK.

A few years back I tripped up with a story where a character refers to herself as a "wog". In the Australian context of the story it was an innocuous thing to say, but it really threw some UK readers who weren't familiar with the Australian usage. I think one of them mentioned that it was like hearing the N-word in a US context. I added a note to that story to clarify the difference.

 

[Bramblethorn]

Let's try more accurate terms:

Bob: "I want to paint something blue. Is this brand of cobalt blue good for that?"

Jane: "Cobalt blue is based on heavy metals, so it's quite toxic. If you splash it around that might be harmful to yourself or others."

Bob: "No one has thrown up. You just don't like the smell. And no other blue has quite the same sheen and intensity as this one. Can't you get over your dislike of the smell?"

Jane: "No, fuck you. Use the blues I like or you're an asshole!"

Bob: "What the fuck, Jane! I just want to paint."

Actually, if you read back through this thread, OP ("Bob") accepted the advice given and elected not to use "Oriental", without making a big performance about it. There's a reason I separated the characters of Bob and Steve. You're Steve.

That said... cobalt blue most certainly is toxic, it doesn't have much smell to speak of (if you can smell it, you're probably inhaling more than is healthy), and vomiting is not a common symptom of cobalt poisoning.

So, yes, the rest of the characterisation is accurate: you're the guy who didn't bother to do basic research before arguing with people who actually know their paints, who insults them by making spurious claims about their motives rather than accept that they might actually know what they're talking about, and who then acts all aggrieved when he gets told off for that arrogance.

Yes, let's be offended because someone not from your country finds things about your country interesting! That's an awesome attitude! Fuck those foreigners liking your shit! What a bunch of assholes!

You really didn't read it, did you? Because that's the exact opposite of the point I was making. I thought I'd made it pretty clear - in fact, I thought I was being quite heavy-handed about it - but okay, I'll spell it out.

My point was that "Oriental" isn't a country, or a culture. It's a whole bunch of disparate places, peoples, countries, and cultures, defined basically as "not Europe" (more specifically, not-Europe to the east of Europe).

When you say stuff like "["Oriental"] calls to mind a particular architecture", you might think that's a compliment. But it's more like saying "oh, you're Canadian? That's great, I love Taco Bell and the Brandenburg Gate." It just marks you out as somebody who sees "Orientals" as a homogenous mass, which actually isn't flattering.

Make the jokes you like, but the fact of the matter is, some black people just like fried chicken and watermelon.

Why do people like you feel the need to demonize that sort of thing as bad just because some assholes want to make it racist? Fried chicken and watermelon are delicious!

*looks behind me in an attempt to figure out who the fuck you're talking to, because it clearly isn't me*

In sixth grade I got my face bashed into a urinal for being a "faggoty little queer-bait" daring to piss where another boy wanted to...even though the rest of the bathroom was empty.

It's not the words that sent me to the hospital to get five stitches.

So if you were using a urinal today, and some guy walked up and called you a "faggoty little queer-bait"... would you stop to engage him in conversation and try to figure out his intent, because words don't matter?

I doubt it. Pretty much any guy I know would go into fight-or-flight mode.

Anyway, I'm going to put you on ignore now, because writing messages to people who don't bother reading them isn't the best use of my time.

 

[Hypoxia]

I just now told TripAdvisor to search around Sacramento, CA for 'Asian' and hit many business names. I repeated the search for 'Oriental' and got four hits, two in Bangkok, two around Tokyo. I conclude that 'Oriental' is not popular with businessfolk stateside.

 

[R. Richard]

When the Brits were fighting the Arabs, they were mistreating their captives. The top Brit officer stated, "Stop mistreating prisoners, they're Western Oriental Gentlemen."

Not that Wikipedia is particularly reliable, but it says

"The origin of the term is unclear. It was first noted by lexicographer F.C. Bowen in 1929, in his Sea Slang: a dictionary of the old-timers’ expressions and epithets, where he defines wogs as "lower class Babu shipping clerks on the Indian coast."

Many dictionaries say "wog" derives from the golliwog, a blackface minstrel doll character from a children's book, The Adventures of Two Dutch Dolls and a Golliwog by Florence Kate Upton, published in 1895; or from pollywog, a dialect term for tadpole that is used in maritime circles to indicate someone who has not crossed the equator.

Suggestions that the word is an acronym for "wily Oriental gentleman", "working on government service", or similar, are examples of false etymology. Wikipedia doesn't say why though. In Australia it's used to refer to Southern European, Mediterranean, and Middle Easterners so it's a bit broader that "oriental" altho if you're British, well, "The wogs begin at Calais" (implying that everyone who's not British is a wog).

 

[redzinger]

Mentioned earlier, but I find the variety of how place of origin names being acceptable or insulting is fascinating, and often confusing.

Brit
Argie
Jap
Saffer
Aussie
Welshie
Paki
Rusky
Kiwi
Canuck
Frog

How would you rank the above (and any others you can think of) from completely unacceptable, to 'not sure'/'depends on intention', to acceptable parlance?

 

[JasonClearwater]

Mentioned earlier, but I find the variety of how place of origin names being acceptable or insulting is fascinating, and often confusing.

Brit
Argie
Jap
Saffer
Aussie
Welshie
Paki
Rusky
Kiwi
Canuck
Frog

How would you rank the above (and any others you can think of) from completely unacceptable, to 'not sure'/'depends on intention', to acceptable parlance?

Well, some of those are words people from those countries use to refer to themselves, and some are slurs.

Brit, Canuck, Kiwi, Aussie - are self-referential, and terms used with pride.

The rest are words used by various countries in the West to refer to other cultures in a derogatory fashion.

Which is not to say that other cultures don't slag off Westerners; racism is not a Western invention. But two wrongs, and all that.

 

[Voboy]

Several of those seem either archaic or affectionate, not racist. Frog used to be offensive, for example; I doubt Canuck ever was.

A few? It would open my eyes and make me look twice to see either Jap or Paki in print. The others? I doubt I’d bat an eye.

I note you didn’t add Yank.

 

[ElectricBlue]

Jap, Paki, and Frog would stand out as the least desirable terms, these days.

Here in Oz, Canuck is high order affectionate, like Kiwi and Pom (ya pommy bastard is affectionate).

Interestingly, "Yank" is becoming more ambiguous, I think. "Stupid Yank" is not necessarily as friendly as it once was, although a reference to a Septic (as in, septic tank, yank) is generally friendlier (an Aussie won't waste a good bit of rhyming slang on a clown).

 

[clistenovena]

That's because we orientals are wily and smart.

https://i.pinimg.com/564x/13/70/d4/1370d4d397d6bc519423329d2c123799.jpg

OMG!! My best friend is from Thailand. She gave me this pic to let me know she was pregnant. After the excitement abated some, we laughed til we cried.

Oh, that was a good day. Thanks for the reminder.

 

[Bramblethorn]

Mentioned earlier, but I find the variety of how place of origin names being acceptable or insulting is fascinating, and often confusing.
...
How would you rank the above (and any others you can think of) from completely unacceptable, to 'not sure'/'depends on intention', to acceptable parlance?

IMHO:

Jap, Frog, Paki: completely unacceptable, unless somebody chooses to self-describe.

Argie: probably ditto. I associate this one with the Falklands War, when it was mostly used by people either (a) trying to kill Argentinians, or (b) cheering on the aforementioned, so it definitely comes across as hostile. But I haven't heard it used much before or since, so if somebody were to tell me the meaning had shifted, I'd consider what they had to say.

Brit: mostly innocuous but I knew one British guy who took exception to it. I avoided using it in his presence but would use otherwise.

Saffer: never encountered this one, though it's easy enough to guess. I'd need to know more about how it's used before I formed an opinion.

Welshie, Canuck: both sound a bit antagonistic/condescending to me, but I haven't heard either of them used much, so it's possible there's more friendly usage that I've missed.

Rusky: mostly familiar with this as a hostile term, would want to check before using.

Aussie, Kiwi: generally okay. If somebody's already being insulting, "Kiwi" can exacerbate that by adding a condescending note, but on its own it should be fine.

All these abbreviations are informal and could give offense if used in a context where formality was expected. Some of them can be used by their own groups in racist ways (e.g. some people use "Aussie" to mean "white English-speaking Australian") but that's a different issue.

 

[FEELINGLUCKYPUNK]

I just got my DNA test results.

I was certain of African ancrstry yet have none, its South Asian

We celebrate our Native American heritage, except we have none, its Spanish.

The other susprise is the Finnish.

 

[Voboy]

I just got my DNA test results.

I was certain of African ancrstry yet have none, its South Asian

We celebrate our Native American heritage, except we have none, its Spanish.

The other susprise is the Finnish.

I’ll say it:

The Finnish is often a surprise on Lit, but if it is, the writer’s done a poor job with the buildup.







Rimshot. In other news, I’ve learned Frog is still offensive. I had no idea it was still 1803. I apologize to whatever Frenchmen I may have offended in my life...

 

[KindofHere]

................

 

[MrKittyLuver]

Argie: probably ditto. I associate this one with the Falklands War, when it was mostly used by people either (a) trying to kill Argentinians, or (b) cheering on the aforementioned, so it definitely comes across as hostile. But I haven't heard it used much before or since, so if somebody were to tell me the meaning had shifted, I'd consider what they had to say.

You sure you wouldn't rush to link Meriam and tell them they were misinformed when they were growing up as to the One True etymology of the word? You are far to full of yourself to ever give in this easily. I mean, we do have first party accounts of the origins of these words complete with notes on usage and intent, right? This isn't just the "best academic guess"?

Wasn't there once a "best academic guess" that Troy wasn't a real city but that it only existed in legend?

All these abbreviations are informal and could give offense if used in a context where formality was expected.

Offense can not be given, only taken. You really need to learn how to control your own emotions a little bit.

I just now told TripAdvisor to search around Sacramento, CA for 'Asian' and hit many business names. I repeated the search for 'Oriental' and got four hits, two in Bangkok, two around Tokyo. I conclude that 'Oriental' is not popular with businessfolk stateside.

Sacramento, CA is all of stateside? Isn't this sample size just a little small to be that definitive? Isn't the fact that it shows up in hyper-socially-conscious California AT ALL a bit of an indicator that maybe it isn't as bad as people are trying to make it out to be?

 

[oggbashan]

This thread, yikes. Didn't it start as a question on how to describe eyes in a non-offensive way?

How do you describe the eyes?

I'm not touching this, I was getting a little to combative with people for a bit, I'm staying away from these types of threads, but it is an interesting read.

You could say they have an epicanthic fold.

A simpler way is to give them a name that is appropriate for their nationality and leave the description to the reader's imagination.

 

[JasonClearwater]

You could say they have an epicanthic fold.

A simpler way is to give them a name that is appropriate for their nationality and leave the description to the reader's imagination.

Glossy almond-shaped eyes with soft, dark lashes.

 

[KatieTay]

Glossy almond-shaped eyes with soft, dark lashes.

Nice one right there!

 

[ChloeTzang]

Glossy almond-shaped eyes with soft, dark lashes.

Bats them shamelessly, you sweet talker, you. Spoils it by giggling.

 

[Captainnumnuts]

This thread, yikes. Didn't it start as a question on how to describe eyes in a non-offensive way?

How do you describe the eyes?

I'm not touching this, I was getting a little to combative with people for a bit, I'm staying away from these types of threads, but it is an interesting read.

The eyes have it!

 

[JasonClearwater]

Bats them shamelessly, you sweet talker, you. Spoils it by giggling.

*also spoils it by giggling*

 

[NoJo]

Consider something like this:
"Her mascara extended outwards into a curved line to accentuate her oriental features."

I do something like that too sometimes. I wear a huge fake nose to accentuate my Jewish features.

Seriously though, it's fine to write that, especially, as the sentence implies, if the character wants to stand out a little and make herself a little more exotic. So "Oriental" in this case means "Oriental-looking to non-orientals".

 

[SolarRay]

Related: This came through the wire the other day. Pretty girl propaganda posters from China. Because, you know, "The fragrance of rice floats a thousand miles. Everybody becomes a hero!" ...
https://chineseposters.net/themes/women.php

 

[oggbashan]

Related: This came through the wire the other day. Pretty girl propaganda posters from China. Because, you know, "The fragrance of rice floats a thousand miles. Everybody becomes a hero!" ...
https://chineseposters.net/themes/women.php

I have a page from a calendar showing the gorges of the Yangtse.

It is titled:

Red Flags Fly! The Gang of Four is Down!

There are apparently people standing in inaccessible places waving the Chinese Red Flag. It is long before photoshop so is an artist's impression of the celebration.

 

[Voboy]

Art imitates forums.

About two minutes ago, I threw some dialogue about Asian vs Oriental into my current piece. Why not?