Calling people by nationality affiliation is a little risky, because if you get it wrong, then it's a lot more offensive than simply being generically called "Asian."

I'm Korean, myself, and while I'm thicker-skinned than most, I can't help but get a little irked inside when someone gets my nationality wrong. Honestly, I'd rather they just play it safe and call "Asian," than get it entirely wrong and fumble about it in conversation later.

 

Just call us asians ... but then i know some really retarded fucks who yell DISCRIMINATION! even at that ... so perhaps a simple "Hey mate!" will suffice if your trying to get ones attention but then in any other situation i can't think of anything more PC than Asians.

 

Asians or the race of the person in question is all perfectly fine to me. I know several people who find the word "Japs" to be offensive, but the full name of the subgroup they're from has never caused me any problems.

 

This is why I call you a postwhore.

And just to be clear, 'Beur' is verlan (literally, "spoken backwards") for 'Arabe', which is considered offensive; so in fact 'Beur' is generally better accepted than 'Arabe'. Just like most people stopped saying 'Noir' (French for black) and started using the English word, 'Black', because somehow it's less offensive.

As for Asians, uh... I say 'of Asian origin' if they're French citizens. Just plain 'Asian' if they're not.

Right. Not helpful.

 

As I'm technically Asian (Israel), the most not offensive thing you can call me is European. Seriously.

 

@N: I'm curious to know why you asked; just your own curiosity or some other reason?

Did an Asian person chew you out or something?

My answer would be what you used in the part I quoted - Asians. Anything more specific than that should just be the full name: Korean, Vietnamese, Chinese, Japanese, etc.

Especially when talking about specific instances that pertain only to a specific group; saying 'Asians' when discussing events surrounding Kim Jong Il and Korea with a group of, say, Japanese people may or may not be taken as offensive, but it definitely makes you look ignorant.

As for why Aussie isn't considered as offensive as Jap: aside from the historical reasons given, I don't think Japanese people came up with the term in the first place. It's always a sensitivity issue when another group of people come up with a name for another - no matter how benign.

 

No, nothing like that. I was reading a book for class which used the term "Orientals." From what I know that is an offensive term, though it wasn't intended as such. Asians find that term patronizing.

When I read that in the book, I realized it was dated. In the kind of studying I do, it is typically important for me to figure out if a book or an essay I am reading is still relevant to current affairs or future events. So a term like that which can be thought as offensive these days gives me a clue that the book is older and, perhaps, the material isn't sensitive to cultures in the right way.

That just got me going on thinking about terms that are apparently not offensive because the people who use them don't intend them to be, but are perceived as offensive by whom they are being used for.

Orientals, to me, is an example of the above. Far Easterners is another one someone mentioned to me was like that, but again seemed pretty benign to me.

And, yeah, I would like to just use the name of the country of origin. But honestly I am not always good at that. Oh, and I know not to say "Asians" when talking about Kim Jung Il.

It's just when you are trying to describe someone to a friend, and you need something less generalizing than "Asian."

 

Well, I readily admit that culturally sensitive I am not.

I have a good friend of mine who's Korean, and we by "Asian" or "Foreigner". When describing him, we usually use "short", "little", and "Chinky".

He takes it in good humor, as he claims to be more racist against Asians than we are (he was adopted and never lived in South Korea past the age of two months, doesn't speak it and doesn't want to, hates asian food, and yells at Asians when they talk in a language other than English).

But yeah, I'm also interested in what I should call Asians - or for that matter, black people? Do y'all still like being called "black"?

 

I would imagine they have lost count of the amount of times people use the word "Y'all" when talking to them bruh.

 

I've been wondering if this referred to conversations or books and the like.

If its a book, research should provide the nationality of the group in question otherwise it would provide a general geographic area. eg. South East Asian, South Asian...

In a conversation its easier to ask for a person's name and use that rather than trying to guess their ethnic origin.

In informal conversation, I think Asian acceptable to be used.

 

I had a hell of a lot of problems with this as well when I worked for a marketing company last year for 6 months, and no it wasn't door to door sales or telemarketing. We were instructed always to refer to them by their nationality, so Chinese or Japanese etcetera, we were never to shorten it and if we didn't know that the safest option was, then we were to say of Asian origin and then we could at our own discretion go further by saying what region of Asia (Southeast).

But we were told that Far Eastern is a big no-no for two reasons, firstly because it's very much a term associated with colonialism and European condescending attitudes and secondly it mixes together a bunch of countries who aren't very fond of eachother (Korea, Japan, China) and can therefore lead to unpopular associations.

Basically stick to fairly logical PC terminology, don't use shortenings or anything that could really be misconstrued as offensive but you don't need to worry about it too much. There has been a bit of a counter-reaction in the past couple of years to what appears to have been a massively over the top move towards universal political correctness in the early stages of this decade. So use your head and you'll be fine, if people call foul just play the overly-sensitive card.

[EDIT] Don't do what I did and get "let go" for writing in a report that the client was an Asian. I didn't mean it to be "dismissive" or "derogatory" but it could have been interpreted that way. It's a lot about where you put it in the sentence and how you use the term, saying "Yeah, he's Asian," might get you in trouble whereas if you said "Yeah, he's from Asia," would be fine.

 

Sometimes the "Asians" are referred to as "Hmongs," basically meaning of Mongolian descent. Typically, its a copout thing when people can't figure out if someone is Chinese, Korean, Japanese, Polynesian or what have you so the whole lot is grouped as "Hmong."

So far, no one seemed to find it offensive. While they might not particularly like the grouping, it also avoids invoking stereotypes of a certain nationality (unlike what "Jap" or "Chink" would).

 

Completely wrong. Hmong people are not connected to Mongolian people whatsoever. Also, I have never ever heard of other asians being grouped as Hmong. Get your facts straight.

 

So...Because you have never heard of it happening, he is obviously wrong?

The Hmong, at least according to their website, moved from the chinese mountains, to China then wherever else they moved to. China had dealings with the Mongolian peoples, being (from what I understand) close neighbors and/or invaders. Chinese history isn't my forte, but it wouldn't be that large a stretch for one to think that a mountainous people in China would be liked to the Mongols...

 

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hmong_people

It's an ethnic rather than national identity, but the probability that a random person from East Asia is Hmong is pretty low. It is not a catch-all term.

 

Mmm...pretty much yeah, I'd know my own history after all. Hmong people are descended from Chinese people that moved south and eventually gained their own ethnic identity.

 

He was referring to Asians being called Hmong. Slang doesn't take history into account. If someone decided to call Asian people Hmong someday, and it caught up in his neighbourhood and eventually a whole region, then it's legit slang.

So if people somewhere are calling Asians Hmongs, then it is a slang term for Asian, whether you heard it before or not.

 

never mind.

 

I just call Asians "Asians", Blacks "blacks", whites "white", and Arabs as Arabians (For some reason, it doesn't sound right to say "Hey, there's some Arabs!". I'd much rather say "Hey, there's some Arabians." or "Those guys are Arabian.").

That's all.

I don't follow all this political correctness shit.

If you're Asian and don't like being called asian, then suck it the fuck up. I'm not here to grovel because of your ridiculous martyr complex.