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Message: <blockquote data-quote="kenjib" data-source="post: 249789" data-attributes="member: 530">Part of the reason why it is considered offensive dates back to around the turn of the century and earlier IIRC.  There was a trend called "orientalism" by which eastern things were very popular primarily among the more wealthy folks in Europe and the US.  This all ties in to the eventual, rapid, and tumultuous westernization of East Asia that followed.  It also ties in to the long history of European colonialism in the East.  The word "oriental" does not simply mean "pertaining to Eastern people and culture."  It actually means "pertaining to a Western reinterpretation/misinterpretation of Eastern people and culture."Basically this gets into the domain of the tension between subject and object.  Each power center wishes to define itself according to it's own subjectivity.  Furthermore, each power center wishes to define other places according to it's subjectivity.  This is what the process of objectification is.  When a given power center (the West in our example) becomes powerful enough, other power centers (the East in our example) are forced to redefine themselves in the terms of the other, thereby losing their subjectivity.  This can be devastating to a culture (refer to Africa for the arguably best example, not coincidentally also the subject of Western exoticism/fetish at several times in history - egyptology, cubism, etc.).Thus "oriental" is considered an offensive word by some because it connotes the Western objectification of the Eastern world.  Words are very complex things with long histories and many levels of meaning.  In many ways, language defines our understanding of the world.  Consider in several myths the idea that the process of naming is closely related to creation (as in the Old Testament for example).I do not mean to express a value judgement on whether or not such a law is a good thing, whether or not the phenomenon I expressed above is a good thing or a bad thing, or whether the use of the word "oriental" is indeed in poor taste as I don't think that is a proper topic for this board.  I only intend to point out why such a use is offensive to some people, since it seems that some posters may not be aware of this historical issue.I would like to point out in advance that many people would believe what I pointed out to be a bunch of PC garbage.  That's fine and there's no need to argue the merits of this concept here (again I make no value judgement here myself).  If this is your opinion just keep in mind that other people may feel differently and that is one possible reason why the term in question offends others.</blockquote>

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