[xoxoJaemiexoxo]

What does oriental mean? I have always been curious.
I tried looking it up on soompi but only "Oriental Hair Salon" popped up. lol

I just searched it up on Google.

There's like only one site that talks about it and its wikipedia. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Oriental

It said orient describes the 3 East Asian countries: China, Japan, Korea
and a Southeast Asian country: Vietnam

But then I got more confused.

Don't all Asians eat rice?
Why are the top 4 considered oriental and the rest not?
If you're not one of the 4 can you still consider yourself "oriental"?
And how can an Asian be considered "oriental"?

What does oriental mean?

[little mixed girl]

*sigh*
*shakes head*

"oriental asian" is a term that's used in the UK, i believe.
just as you have found, it refers to countries like korea, japan, and china.
a.k.a. "far east asia".

in the US the word "oriental" used to be used to describe asians, but it's considered outdated and racist. now in america we say "asian".

in america, "asia" refers to a large range of peoples.
"asian" in america covers people from japan to india and south to the philippines.

i don't get what rice has to do with anything.

in america, we also use a term called "south asian" and another called "south east asian".
"south asian" refers to indians, nepalis, bangladeshis, etc.
and "south east asian" refers to like, vietnam, thailand, etc.

to sum it up again, "oriental" is not a word used in the US to describe people.
it's used in the US to describe things.
"asian" in the US can mean a large range of people with different cultures and languages.

[abviolinplayer]

^that pretty much sums it up
but yeah, don't use that term unless you're describing food or objects.

[cannotfindserver]

why can't they just say ASIANS? or just pinpoint the specific nationalities. i don't get why they have to use terms like that. that's very regionalistic.

[jaeka]

In the UK we do commonly use, "oriental asian" or "far east asian" or just "chinese".
Asian over here usually refers to those from the Middle East... Pakistanis, indians etc. Chinese sums up the "far eastern asians", there are more "Asians" than there is "Far Eastern Asians" so yeah. ;]

[shining_star[:]

oh my soul
i cant believe you asked this question ROFL
just google it up

[LazyAzian]

Oriental is more like for Far East like stated a few posts above.

I think it's:

Vietnam, China, Taiwan, Korea, Japan and Philippines.

[영원한 사랑]

Oriental Asians include Chinese, Japanese, Korean etc. Those type of asian people.

Btw, Phillipinos are not oriental asians.

[LazyAzian]

Oriental Asians include Chinese, Japanese, Korean etc. Those type of asian people.

Btw, Phillipinos are not oriental asians.

I don't know, I'm basing it from the fact that the ancestors of indigenous Filipinos came from Taiwan.

[영원한 사랑]

Oriental Asians include Chinese, Japanese, Korean, Vietnamese, Singaporians, Mongolians, and Taiwanese. Basically the countries that are on the very east of asia.