White Cat Bar, Bangkok, is open

[forrestreid]

Regarding the comment of @mauRICE on the reference to a customer of the bar as “Oriental”, I will submit to his wisdom that is now regarded as rather “not cool” to use it. Personally I would have said that, although rather old-fashioned these days, it wasn’t necessarily an offensive term.

However, given your location in Kuala Lumpur, I presume you have your finger on the pulse amongst the people about whom the term is used.

However, I think you’re wrong to suggest it is purely an equivalent of "Asian". I think the term "Oriental" when describing a person is more understood to mean an East Asian person, as opposed to an Arab or Indian. So by saying Oriental rather than Asian, Vinapu was giving somewhat richer contextual information.

Usage on this is depends on where you are from - in the UK Asian tends to mean somebody from the south Asian subcontinent whereas in America an Asian almost exclusively means East Asian.

In England you might hear somebody saying “there used to be a Chinese restaurant there, but it closed and they opened an Asian restaurant in its place” which would sound weird to a North American, but would be understood in England to mean an Indian restaurant replaced a Chinese.

[Keithambrose]

7 minutes ago, forrestreid said:

Regarding the comment of @mauRICE on the reference to a customer of the bar as “Oriental”, I will submit to his wisdom that is now regarded as rather “not cool” to use it. Personally I would have said that, although rather old-fashioned these days, it wasn’t necessarily an offensive term.

However, given your location in Kuala Lumpur, I presume you have your finger on the pulse amongst the people about whom the term is used.

However, I think you’re wrong to suggest it is purely an equivalent of "Asian". I think the term "Oriental" when describing a person is more understood to mean an East Asian person, as opposed to an Arab or Indian. So by saying Oriental rather than Asian, Vinapu was giving somewhat richer contextual information.

Usage on this is depends on where you are from - in the UK Asian tends to mean somebody from the south Asian subcontinent whereas in America an Asian almost exclusively means East Asian.

In England you might hear somebody saying “there used to be a Chinese restaurant there, but it closed and they opened an Asian restaurant in its place” which would sound weird to a North American, but would be understood in England to mean an Indian restaurant replaced a Chinese.

In UK, in my experience, on the escort sites, etc, 'South Asian' is used to denote someone from India. Asian can cover South East Asia, and China. Japan is usually separate 

[floridarob]

Words shift depending on country, culture, and language. In Mexico you’ll hear “chino,” “hindú,” and “gringo” used pretty casually. You’ll even see places called “Oriental City.”

Aren't languages fun 🙂