Hey! Who's the oriential chicky with the blonde hair taking pics? Does she have a website? :crackhead:
Does anyone here know what it is about the term 'oriental' as used in the initial post that is offensive in American English? I've asked lots of Asian folks adn nobody even came close to explaining it. I even asked an Asian studies prof. this question years ago and his only reply was "well, you wouldn't want to be called 'Occidental' now would you?" Um...it would be odd, but would I be offended? Um...no? I do know that the 'Orient' originally referred to what is now the Mid-East, but it has clearly come to refer pretty much always to SE Asia (unless you are actually talking about rugs). The closest thing I could ever figure out would be if people didn't like the fact that the disparate cultures in SE Asia get lumped together when you say 'Oriental' but 'Asian' is even worse in this regard. Surely somebody can explain it? (by the way, I always use 'Asian' because I"m not interested in offending people just because I personally don't understand something...I just want to understand it)
I thought I did a good job at genuinely asking the question...do you think somebody is gonna get mad? That wasn't my intention... EDIT: Because you won't let me race my SV in SSB!!!
You did do a great job, of asking a political question in general in a thread about finding a photographer.
hahahaha....I didn't think of it that way, but that is pretty funny. Seriously...I don't see it as a political question, but I see how it could turn into a "Dungeon' style conversation. Sorry about that.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Oriental Basically "Orient" started in Europe with the people they were dealing with towards the East in what's now "Middle East" (Turkey, Mongolia, Iran, Iraq). The orginal Orient Express went from Paris to Istanbul! Would you now days call a Turk Oriental? When everyone started going the other way around the world the Eastern Asians got lumped into "The Orient". Which technically they're not. Kinda like us still calling Native Americans "Indians".
EDIT: I forgot that I'm probably not welcome to continue the conversation Like I said, I'm not trying to argue that it isn't offensive to some people...just trying to understand.
Even more elaboration: http://answers.google.com/answers/threadview?id=545754 Basically I don't like it because it was the term used commonly by the backwoods Georgia rednecks that thought my mother "talked funny." I guess somewhere along the line in their limited education and mating with farm animals they decided that the white trash southern accent was actually the Queen's english. and I'm surprised no one whipped out "It's a yellow thang, you wouldn't understand" yet.
Don't you mean 'AZN?' Also, now I understand! I never intended to imply that it was ok to associate an Asian person with the European colonial attitude toward the Ottoman East! Them's fightin' words!
