From: li@Data-IO.COM (Phyllis Rostykus)
Subject: Re: Words
Organization: Data I/O Corporation
Date: Tue, 13 Oct 1992 18:56:39 GMT

In article <1992Oct13.150540.8690@kakwa.ucs.ualberta.ca> aaron@space.ualberta.ca writes:
>Alfvaen says, "I'm not Oriental, or Asian, or even Chinese, but I'll have to
>defend my use of the first term.  First off, I don't use Asian because Asian is
>too nonspecific.  What about people from India?  Or the Philippines?  Or from
>Israel, for that matter?  Or Russia?  I could use the term, but only if I
>included all of the above--and at the University of Alberta, for instance,
>all groups are prominent--Orientals more than most, but the number of East
>Indians(used instead of mere 'Indian' to avoid confusion with Natives or First
>Peoples--I can defend that term too, if you want)and Arabs is non-negligible.

Liralen sighs, "Being an American Asian, of Chinese decent... there is no
need to 'defend' your use of the word.  Feel free to use it as you like.
There is no real need to be so damned defensive."  Liralen takes a deep
breath.  "I was trying to point out common connotation, not definition.
You are perfectly correct in your expose of the 'definition' of the word
'Oriental' in the scientific sense."

"Look, if you prefer the scientific deliniations of race, feel free to use
'Caucasian', 'Negro', and 'Oriental'.  They are perfectly valid in a
scientific context; however, most folks don't use them in a scientific
context that needs to differentiate between races.  I prefer using Asian
*because* it is inclusive of all the residents of the continent, and isn't
a racial differentiation.    I don't usually need to differentiate people
by race, if anything, I differentiate by country.  Simply a personal
preference."

"Besides," Liralen grins, "I also don't like leaving entire peoples out of
what is supposed to be a universal differentiation.  Where do Native
Americans *fit* in the three-way division by the scientific community?
Where to East Indians fit?  It certainly isn't clear to me that the three
terms above include all the human race; whereas, there are only so many
continents and everyone is on one of them..."

>"I, for one, also don't perceive the 'mysterious' connotations of Oriental as
>much.  And, while >most< of the Orientals I see are probably Chinese, there are
>also sizable Vietnamese and Korean minorities, and even a few Japanese.  I'm
>not yet able to distinguish the various nationalities, although I've been told
>that it's possible, so I lump them together as Orientals.

"Which many folks from many countries could perceive as a great insult.
Japan still has an active apartheid government, mainly aimed against the
Koreans." Liralen shrugs.   "But you're not writing for the Japanese of
Japan or for the Koreans that live in Japan.  So I see nothing wrong in
your use of the word."  She grins, "As if my judgement has *any* bearing on
the thing."

"Thing is that taking the history of the word 'Oriental' and the entire
European concept of the Orient, one might find that the connotations of
the word to include the Middle East, Turkey, India, and even the western
states of what once was the USSR.  So, in the historic connotative sense,
it's no more precise than 'Asian'."

>"But I realize that one thing that we can't control, especially on the Net, is
>how other people read our words.  Everyone's posts should come with glossaries,
>assuming we would even realize what terms everyone would misinterpret.  So that
>is my definition of Oriental."

Liralen chuckles, "But that's a cop out, in a way.  While we can't control
how someone reads our words, we can control what we write.  And if I am
*aware* that the folks here react badly to one thing or another, then I can
avoid it.  Does that make more sense than an argument over wheither or
not one should/shouldn't use Oriental?"
----
Liralen Li
li@inigo.Data-IO.com
Newsgroups: alt.callahans