It’s fine for food and carpets. I’d should have specified it’s… ahem... problematic when used to describe people.When I was in London UK just a couple of years ago, that word was everywhere. Supermarkets aisles, in the names of chinese restaurants, everywhere. Once you noticed it it was hard to unnotice it. That news hasn't spread beyod the borders of the US yet!
I gotta admit, though, whenever I see something like ‘oriental sauce’ on a menu, I takes a fair amount of willpower not to ask the server questions like “is it sauce for orientals or made from orientals?”
I mean, I won’t. Mortifying your server is always terrible etiquette. But it is kinda tempting...