"Oriental" is illegal! (Thank God!)

i know someone who goes to occidental college. wonder if they’re going to have to change the name of their school.

the stupid thing about the “oriental” debate is that i know lots of asians who still use that term. most noticably from the us south(texas, georgia, and so forth) and from outside the us. my chinese-british friends and chinese-aussie friends are surprised to find out that it’s offensive to certain americans to use that word. i guess my chinese-british friend would be even more confused that we’re replacing it with the word “asian”. maybe they should amend the law and require a prefix to distinguish it further between east asian, southeast asian, and south asian.

Reading through this thread, I can’t help but wonder whether some of the posters read too much into the word “illegal” in the subject line.

The law states that “state and local lawmakers are prohibited from using the term “Oriental” in statutes, codes, rules and regulations. Instead, officials must use ‘Asian’ to describe people of Asian descent” (emphasis added).

This is not stomping on the free speech of the general population. This is about how a state government words its statutes.

The Orient is in many ways a land that exists primarily in the imagination of some Westerners. This shouldn’t be news to most people. Edward Said came out with Orientalism more than 20 years ago – and he was referring mainly to how the Orient referred to “Arab” lands.

A little bit on Said here:
www.emory.edu/ENGLISH/Bahri/Orientalism.html

FWIW, I think the name of this website is excellent.

Those colonial-days, “western” viewpoints as expressed in that site are extremely outdated, to say the least. If people still conjure up the same archaic images of present day, modern, 21st century Asia, then they are indeed very backwards, ignorant and uneducated. I’m not offended by the term Oriental because my definition is just different. The English language is constantly changing. New vocabulary are being invented, and antiquated definitions are being updated. Orient/Oriental have already been reformed in my mind. Prohibiting its usage is just a copout.

My favourite was when Leicester Local Education Authority (England) outlawed the word “black” in reference to coffee and blackboards. Incidentally, the word “white” was outlawed in respect to coffee also, the correct terms being “coffee with milk, and coffee without milk”. I would imagine they came up with a word for “whiteboard” too, but I never found out what it was.

You can imagine the immense benefit to the black community in Leicester. How they rejoiced upon hearing the news.

As for so-called “Irish-Americans”… You’re welcome to them. We sure as hell don’t want them back. Hyphens or no hyphens.

I have often skimmed through those English teaching magazines at the library, however I have never seen an article discussing the origin of the term “Gook”. Can anyone provide some insight?

From a discussion on “gook”

http://h-net.msu.edu/cgi-bin/logbrowse.pl?trx=vx&list=h-war&month=0104&week=a&msg=sdQ/a%2bKujPy0Yq%2bKMADLuA&user=&pw=

Can someone tell me why “Chinaman” is supposed to be derogatory as well? Why is it not offensive to call someone an Englishman, Irishman, or Frenchman? Why should it be any different?

I worked with this Australian girl who’s 1/4 Indonesian but looks completely caucasian. She told me that she has a cousin who’s part Indonesian as well, but he looked more Asian. She said that her and her sisters used to tease him by calling him a “chinaman”. The term itself isn’t offensive to me, unlike some other slurs. It seems so passe. Yet the fact that the way she and her sisters had used it was meant to be offensive I guess offended me a little. In addition, if it was meant to be offensive, I was surprised that she would use it with me so casually. To this day I’ve wondered whether I should have felt insulted.

I think ‘chinaman’ is mildy offensive with the emphasis on mildly. I don’t think I’ve ever heard anybody under the age of 70 use it in the US, so this probably lessens the sting even more. The term may be an example of what sociolinguists call an ‘insider’ term – a word for members of another group used by a group of insiders. So if you are ethnically Chinese and someone calls you this, you might naturally feel offended because the speaker is excluding you from her in-group.

Actually, I’m more interested in the Mandarin term ‘laowai’. Like ‘chinaman’, ‘laowai’ is an insider term. So if someone calls me this knowing that I will hear it, I think it’s slightly offensive. On the other hand, if I overhear someone using it, I don’t think much of it.

I often hear non-native speakers of Mandarin referring to themselves or others as ‘laowai’. Unless you are joking with close friends, I think this is usage error.

I think that many of these terms become associated with the attitudes that were prevalent when the term was used or among the people who used it. If the associated attitude is considered offensive the term becomes offensive too.

The n-word is extremely offensive because of it’s association with the period of slavery and segregation. I think “Chinaman” is considered offensive because of it’s association with mid to late 1900’s “yellow peril” era sentiment.

As pointed out in the Big Lebowski, “the prefered nomenclature is Asian American.” (For those of you who’ll read that as sanctimonious, watch the movie)

quote[quote] I think that many of these terms become associated with the attitudes that were prevalent when the term was used or among the people who used it. If the associated attitude is considered offensive the term becomes offensive too. [/quote]

Bingo!

I agree entirely.

To me ‘Chinaman’ sounds like negro, negroid or even ****** (probably can’t say ****** on Oriented due to that damn stupid auto-censor that I wish the mopderatoprs would just turn off), and ‘oriental’ sounds like ‘coloured’.

Bri

According to what I heard, when the US soldiers landed on the beaches in Korea, the Koreans who saw them immediately recognized them as “Americans”, and spoke that in Korean, which is (approximately) “Me-guk”.

Most of the US soldiers, not being experts in oriental (whoops . . . I am supposed to avoid that word in this thread!) linguistics, assumed the Koreans were saying “Me gook”, or in other words “I am a gook.”

Again, most of these US soldiers, not having advanced training in oriental (whoops . . . excuse me!) speech patterns and modes of communications, responded rather bluntly by saying “Oh, you are a gook? Well, I am an American.”

Hence, the origin of the word “gook” to refer to any person with oriental (Oh, I am terribly sorry!) complexion and features, and of course with no bad feelings intended. (I think I have this right.)

Nope. See the link posted earlier by wwwright.

gook goes way back and runs deep. it isn’t clear from wwwright’s post where it really comes from. but if soldiers are drawing it for all the asians and pacific dwellers then simply getting it from every running about goo-goo-ga-ga-ing and getting ‘gook’ like ‘cook’ from ‘coo-coo crazy’ then it makes enough sense to me. (not to say that the orientals are crazy or talk like babies though i’ve met some that are and do.)

as for ‘oriental’ it does sound like ‘colored’ and my dear grandmother, bless her heart, would say both without a thought but neither come out of my mouth unless i’m being facetious. i think political correctness only arises when there is a political issue to divide people. when people start making something out of nothing it is indeed because they’re bored, but sometimes these issues are worth addressing. you’re wasting your time trying to rework my grandmother’s mouth though. she’ll tell you exactly how exotic them orientals are to her anyday.

quote:
Originally posted by thyrdrail: Can someone tell me why "Chinaman" is supposed to be derogatory as well? Why is it not offensive to call someone an Englishman, Irishman, or Frenchman?

Or a Zhonguoren, Ribenren or Meiguoren, or a Diungguolang, Daiwanlang etc…(forgive my spelling by ear.)

quote[quote][/QB]she'll tell you exactly how exotic them orientals are to her anyday.[/QB][/quote]

Obviously we catch the tongue-in-cheek tone of the way the phrase is used here. But the fact that the term “oriental” can and is used this way and it often is in the Southern parts of the US (where I call home) should lend credence to the argument that it is offensive. Ultimately, the sensitivity to language and its use in describing genders and races is sometimes frustrating. It’s not easy staying current. But it seems that in the case of the word “oriental,” that its the people being called “oriental” that are objecting. If this is the case, shouldn’t we be willing to avoid using terms that a particular group finds offensive?

In Singapore, the term “ang mo” is used for whites…there’s even an area of Singapore named Ang Mo Kio.

http://www.hps.com/~tpg/singapore/vol29.html

http://schools.moe.edu.sg/amkps/

In Indonesia, the term “bule” is commonly used. While I was in Jogja, I saw a sign advertising a language school in which they proudly boasted they had “bule” teachers. Chinese are referred to as:
yellow “bule”
yellow “anjing” (dog)
or
yellow “monyet” (monkey)

By the way, an interesting site is:

http://www.angelfire.com/geek/APRACE/glossary.html

I always thought “gwailo” was an interesting term … perhaps all the more interesting because Westerners in HK are happy to refer to themselves as “gwailos.”

Cantonese slang for Western people, literally meaning devil-man (because of the colour of their skin and of their generally weird behaviour). A lot of declinations exist: Gwaijai (young male gwailo), Gwaipo (female gwailo), Gwaimui (young female gwailo), Hakgwai (black gwailo), Sei gwailo (evil gwailo, fucking gwailo), Fan gwailo (barbarian gwailo), Feigwai (fat gwailo) and so on. It may or may not be derogatory, depending on the tone, the context and the disposition of the person saying it.
source

A note:

I think it was during WWII that the British War Office ordered that the term “n-i-g-g-e-r” no longer be used when referring to Indians. The British troops came up with the phrase “Worthy Oriental Gentlemen”…or Wogs.

And of course now, the British Army calls the Irish “Bogwogs”.

Sometimes things just don’t work out the way you think they should…

I like the term Oriental. It is much clearer than just saying “Asian” and somehow less awkward than saying “East Asian”. I have also heard the term “Chopsticks Asia” being used from time to time, which I think is a descriptive, non-derogatory way to put it.

Originally posted by O’Brian:

quote[quote]The British troops came up with the phrase "Worthy Oriental Gentlemen"....or Wogs.[/quote] Nope. That's more folk etymology. The origin of the word, which dates back to at least 1929, is unknown, though it may be related to "golliwog."