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When I was a child I remember frequently hearing references to "oriental" people. Of course "oriental" now has a pejorative connotation, and generally "asian" is preferred.

However, I can't help but feel like "asian", even if it is a step forward socially, is a small step backward in specificity. Maybe it's just my perception of the word, but "oriental" seemed to have an implied reference to people of the far east, specifically to people with a collective set of similar physical features like epicanthic eye folds and straight black hair. A group that would include Chinese, Japanese, or Vietnamese, but would exclude Indians or Iranians (though "asian" is a valid term for all of these people).

The only other term that I've heard of that is conceptually close is "mongoloid", but it has more modern associations with down syndrome, and may be considered a pejorative in its own right.

Is there a modern, socially acceptable term to reach this specific designation of person that might have been referred to as "oriental" or "mongoloid" in the past?

jdmcnair
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    Also related: http://english.stackexchange.com/q/18814 http://english.stackexchange.com/q/34321 http://english.stackexchange.com/q/52722 http://english.stackexchange.com/q/153890 http://english.stackexchange.com/q/125753. You should also understand that this is just a political-correctness rebranding, and that millions of people continue to use this term without any offence intended whatsoever. It is the word that they grew up using for 20 or 40 or 60 or 80 years, and they are not going to shift their native speech just because some busybody makes a royal deal out of something that’s nothing. – tchrist Sep 18 '14 at 03:34
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    Actually, the word oriental means anything from Middle Eastern to East Asian. It was used in Europe to mean, at different periods, different peoples or regions somewhere to the East of those using the term. It is definitely not more specific, regionally, than asian - quite the contrary. It is all over the map. ;-) – Drew Sep 18 '14 at 04:13
  • Agreed, this question is definitely a duplicate. Sorry I missed that. – jdmcnair Sep 18 '14 at 14:13

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Typically the term "East Asian" refers to people of places such as China and Japan, and "South Asian" means people of India and the surrounding countries.

Chris Sunami
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Having recently had a girlfriend of Korean descent, I was informed that 'Oriental' is not actually considered pejorative, but rather simply antiquated. She said that 'Asian' is perfectly acceptable, it's what they use amongst each other when specific country is not known or needed.
Of course, trying to stay PC in referencing ethnicity is a moving target, like nailing jelly to a wall.

DJ Far
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  • @tchrist Knickersnitted Occidentals? – Wayfaring Stranger Sep 18 '14 at 13:41
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    @tchrist, I wonder if the prime motivator behind the move away from using the term Indian to refer to Native Americans has more to do with Euro-Americans just not wanting to sound ignorant than any type of ethnic sensitivity. After all, it's a mistaken term that was applied by people who literally didn't know what continent they were on. It was repeated for half a millennium, far beyond the point where everyone knew better. It's plainly incorrect, so I think its use is more damaging to the speaker than anyone else. – jdmcnair Sep 18 '14 at 14:34
  • @tchrist, I'm not sure if that was intended as a counterpoint or not... I think we agree that it's not so important to Native Americans if they are called Indians. On the other hand, I think it is degrading to us as speakers of English that we have allowed a reference so deeply ignorant and poorly conceived to persist in our language for so long. You can call a tree a mushroom if you like. That doesn't hurt the tree, but it makes your use of language ineffective. – jdmcnair Sep 19 '14 at 02:31
  • @tchrist... really? Downvoting my question because you didn't like my side of this off-topic comment exchange you're participating in? Yeah, I guess it's time I give up. You stay classy, dude... – jdmcnair Sep 19 '14 at 02:48
  • Aaaand he's gone... deleted all his comments. Must have felt a little ashamed of his rude and spiteful behavior. That's user tchrist. Find him here: http://english.stackexchange.com/users/2085 – jdmcnair Sep 19 '14 at 03:21
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If one were to meet with a man from Seoul, a man from Tokyo, a man from Beijing, and a man from Saigon, it shouldn't be hard to figure out which is which. They are as different as the Irish do from Italians and Swedes.

Why not refer to them by their nationality, or better yet, their ethnicity. The man from Saigon looks different than the Hmong, many of whom also live in Vietnam,

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    I don't totally disagree with this answer, but I kind of feel like it's framed around a question I didn't ask. I didn't say that all people from eastern asia are physically indistinguishable from one another. I just think it's perfectly obvious that the Korean, Japanese, Chinese, and Vietnamese individuals in your example share more in common with each other (physically, culturally, etc) than they do with the 3 Europeans in your example. "3 Europeans"... see how easy that was? There should be a more useful signifier than "asian", which just narrows your scope to 60% of the world population. – jdmcnair Sep 18 '14 at 14:07