A Rose By Any Other Name: pt. 2 “Oriental”
This blog post covers an idea sparked by our school’s cafeteria. Thursday’s lunch options used to feature the “Oriental express bar.” In this case, “Oriental” was being used as a sort of catch-all term for “East-Asian-ish.” To be fair, I’m not sure what I would call the weird amalgamation of chow mein and orange chicken (with option of teriyaki sauce). However, as of this week, the name is now, prosaically, the “Thursday express bar.” Hear that? That’s the sound of racism being conquered once and for all. Applause, cafeteria people.
Now, linguistically speaking, is there really anything bad about “Oriental?” The word itself refers to Asia, especially East Asia, geographically (as opposed to “occidental” which refers to “the West”). The linguist part of me also notes that “orient” can simply mean direction, as in “It was oriented towards the sun,” or finding one’s place in new surroundings, as in “freshman orientation” or “it took a while to orient myself.” (The artist part of me says there’s a poem somewhere in that.) The word also isn't really derogatory in the same explicit way as “chink” for example.
Instead, the word has underlying imperialistic undertones—it’s a word that was used in a time when stereotypes perpetuating Asians as foreigners dominated and Asian people were seen as exotic others (see this blog post for more on Orientalism). For me, the word “Oriental” evokes the same feeling as the Wade-Giles romanization of the Chinese language as compared to the pinyin romanizations.
A part of me notes that this is another aspect of Hawaii that seems to be “stuck in the past”—not necessarily in a negative, prejudiced way, but simply out of ignorance and a different perspective. It’s simply a fact that Asian Americans in Hawaii don’t face the same prejudice and racism as those on the mainland, due to the fact that the Asian population is less minority and actually the majority in Hawaii. Asians who have grown up in such an inclusive culture won’t be as sensitive to terms typically used with negative undertones by those on the mainland.
My mom (who grew up in Hawaii), talks about how when she went to college on the east coast in the 80s, she was surprised that people were offended by the term “Oriental” after having used the term to describe herself and her “East-Asian-ish” friends for her whole life. She says that when she first heard that people didn’t like the word, she actually thought they were being “too sensitive.”
I think it’s a bit of a different issue now that the world has become so globalized thanks to the internet and the age of technology, and there’s now a bigger expectation to be “politically correct.” Because of how “Oriental” has been used historically, I think it’s understandable why people would want to avoid the word. I think personally, I fall under the category of thinking that “Oriental” shouldn’t be used to describe people now that we have more accurate terminology, and especially because of how “Oriental” erases any sense of nationality which I think is especially important in today’s increasingly globalized world.
On the other hand, there are people who believe that the word “Oriental” shouldn’t be eliminated from our vocabularies. Many grandparents still use the word, since it’s the word they grew up with and therefore identify with. See Lee Tonouchi’s Significant Moments in da Life of Oriental Faddah and Son (2011) for an example of how “Oriental” is used not ironically, not politically, but simply as a way of identifying as an Okinawan in Hawaii (again, an example of how Hawaii is a bit of a time-bubble).
Recently, I attended a school-held alumni panel of many different kinds of doctors, where, unexpectedly, there was a doctor in traditional Chinese medicine. Of course, she shared that there’s plenty of Orientalism in the realm of (for now let’s call it) “traditional Asian medicine.” But it got me thinking about the discourse surrounding the term “Oriental medicine” (and there is a discourse, with many different places needing to think about names and terminology). Interestingly, one practitioner of Oriental medicine believes that changing the terminology is wholly unhelpful. She again discusses how Oriental medicine is invalidated by those in the western medicine community, and how there are more pressing issues than changing names and brands.
In my field, the word “Oriental” appears in the title of 17 of the 58 accredited graduate-level schools, 21 of the 33 state associations and eight of the 24 national associations. Though the new federal legislation does not require us to act, it has increased pressure to toe the politically correct line.
Are we really going to waste time, energy and millions of dollars to rebrand our entire discipline — rename our schools and boards, redesign corporate identities, websites and publications and send out thousands of revised diplomas — all to wipe away an insult that doesn’t exist? (Tsuchiyama 2016)
Other sources describe how the origin of the term “Oriental medicine” was in fact a positive, describing not only traditional Chinese medicine, but also acknowledging the similar foundations of Japanese and Korean medicine. The usage of “Oriental medicine” began in the 1970s when the medicine was recognized professionally in the US.
In sum, I guess what I’m trying to say is that while a past me might have found more offense in the “Oriental Express Bar,” I don’t think it’s necessary or even worth it to change the name to the “Thursday Express Bar.” “Oriental Express” is obviously a play on words alluding to the Orient Express, and although it’s not very well thought out (the “Orient” in “Orient Express” refers to how the train reached Istanbul—not nearly as far east as China, but at the time considered “the East”), really the only association I have is Agatha Christie, and who doesn’t love Agatha Christie? Anyway, see below for more resources, because the discourse is super interesting. (Until something better comes along, we need something better than the “Thursday Express Bar.” Now that it’s not a train, what is the “express” for? Certainly not the speed of the cafeteria line.)
Resources:
Significant Moments in da Life of Oriental Faddah and Son by Lee Tonouchi (a really hilarious and emotional collection of poetry in Hawaiian Pidgin English)
To remove the word “Oriental” from East Asian medicine institutions… (petition)
Origins of “Asian,” “Oriental,” and usage of “Oriental Medicine”
