Alright, this is not a "lol, troll" thread.

I am posting this to ask what generalized group names Asians find patronizing or offensive? Since, in my experience, Asians are usually a group who aren't out there crying foul and tyranny every-time a non PC term is used, I don't really know what the non-PC terms are.

Posting it here because we do have a wide user-base and some Asians might actually contribute here to say what they dislike or prefer.

The point is I would like to know what is a respectful or better way to refer to Asians.


For example, I know Orientals is offensive to some, Far East Asians is offensive to some too. But if not those then what is a good term?

Edit: in before someone posts "chink"

 

wog for Indian/Pakistani Asians
paki for Pakistani Asians
nip for Japanese
Jap for Japanese
Yellow or Yella for far east Asians.


I wasn't aware Oriental was offensive...

 

To any one from Inda/Pakistan/Bangladesh - Curryman, or some deriviation of that.

 

Be serious. The point is to find nonoffensive terms.

 

Same here, I thought you wanted offensive terms.

My friends call golden brown bear. Half from Scrubs and the other half from the production of Goldilocks we did for assembly.

 

Im not trolling either, but I really don't get why Jap is offensive or could even be concieved as offensive. I'm pretty sure Australians don't get offended when they are refered to as Aussies in the British media and I don't get offended when I'm refered to as a Brit.

It is an interesting question because you never know how different people react, often you can become the subject of inverse-racism where people assume you're being racist because of a comment yet apply racial stereotypes to come to their judgement. (That doesn't make much sense to me but I hope someone can undertand it.)

 

I'm surprised none of the above mentioned ching chong yet. But it's only mildly offensive in the way that it sounds utterly ridiculous. Like chee chee (what?) or yella (lolwtf). How is jap or paki offensive though?

There's nothing wrong with Oriental except that it's not entirely politically correct, but I think people usually assume it refers to East Asians.

To be honest, it's way easier to define people by nationality, but of course some Westerners can hardly tell Chinese and Koreans apart. I suppose Central, Southeast, East Asians, etc. is alright, if a little bothersome.

 

Chink? It sounds relatively benign...

 

Japs and Paki are offensive not because they are shortened forms of full terms, like Aussie is for an Australian.

They are offensive because of the way they are used.

They were used by others as pejorative terms, and that is why they are offensive. In the World War "Jap" or "Japo" was something said hatefully, so the intent behind the shortened term was the offensive part, and that has carried over. And in Britain (Brits can speak on this better) the intent behind the word Paki was derogatory, and that is why that is offensive.

Edit @ OZ, yeah I probably didn't phrase my post correctly to say what I meant. So I edited it a bit.

 

Why is shortening the name of the nation where one is from, and calling them that offensive?

 

Dunno about Paki, but if an American says Jap it's most likely intended to be highly offensive.

 

Both Jap and Paki are not etymologically derogatory but have to do with the historical context. Jap was associated with the demonization of the other side during WWII. Paki hasn't been around as long, but is a generally unfriendly reference or address in Britain. As a result, when you hear either term today, it's not in a positive context.

An exception might be this row where Prince Harry calls one of his friends Paki. Obviously they're in the same unit and he's okay with it, but the media jumped on it. I don't think that's necessarily fair, but that's neither here nor there.

Just use East Asians. I don't think it's offensive, but I don't the Far East really exists anymore so it sounds more anachronistic. It's just East Asia now.

 

Or just refer to them by the country they come from...

Or just call them Asian...

If they get offended by either of those then they too damned thin skinned.

 

Just call them Asian or whatever the race term is for them. Do not shorten races, like Japanese to Jap, as the short forms usually have negative connotations, like Jap was used to demonize Japanese in WWII.

 

I agree that this is the best course of action, but I believe the problem is what to do when you don't know.

What I really have trouble with is when to use Latino, Chicano, Hispanic, Mexican, Latin American, Caucasian in an ambiguous racial/national context because all of those terms offend or outrage somebody, and some people only want to be referred to with a particular label. Lose-lose.

 

Did that happen with Viet? I'm Vietnamese myself and I havn't seen a case where that happened. Then again we're usually called Chinese so...