h2g2 The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy: Earth Edition

Saw some of a proggy last night on telly (uk) called 'the Great British Asian Invasion'. It was apositively biased (from what I saw) view of the aims/values/successes of the different generations of Asian settlers.
But as part of the programme there was a brief description of the word 'Asian'. Apparently it was invented by the British Empire somewhere in to 40's or 50's (I think!) because, as the interviewee said, the British Empire couldn't be botheered having to write down all those different origins (such as indian, Bengali, Senegalese, Pakistani etc) so they invented a word to cover the lot. So regardless of where you were actually from, officialdom basically said 'Oh yes, another one of them, tick the Asian box' and that was it.
Now to me, this sounds like a case of defining people by some arbitary measure and lumping them all together, which is usually seen as bigotted. It can;t be racist, since it doesn't apply to a race, or even a single culture, so not sure what it is. Not xenophobic either. Just plain bigotted?

I have to admit, I hadn't heard this before, but it makes sense.

So, is the term 'Asian' offensive?

I don't find it ofensive to be called European. In fact in order of preference I like European, British then English. Do Texan's object to USAsian or American or Quebecois to Canadian. When you think about it the xenophobia and bigotry cuts in the smaller the unit gets e.g. Little Englander...

Did the Brits derive the term asian from asia? Or did they come up with asia as well?

It didn't say.
I mean it was just one persons opinion that this is the case so it may be wrong.
WanderingAlbatross, good point!
Which kinda leaves us back at the case of 'if the intention behind the term is to offend, then the term is offensive'?

The problem with that is sensitive people can find an offensive comment in any sentance. Intended or not.

indeed so.
Thinking about it, I think the inference was that the potential offence was due to the word being invented for convenience to cover a very varied group of people that had no particular relationship. I guess the word European has a slightly different angle since there is a European political entity. Whereas there is no political entity which covers the countries that Asian is used to cover.

I also think history has something to do with how offense might be construed. How would I feel about being called European in 1940 or going further back to when our enemies were the French or Spanish. It might seem offensive to a Pakastani to be refered to by the same collective adjective as say an Indian....

Do the people of South America find it offensive that the term 'American' is usually taken to EXCLUDE them?

There's no-one around to ask in order to check this but it was my understanding that the people we would normally refer to as 'Asian' prefer that; certainly to 'black' and generally to 'Pakistani' (especially in its somewhat pejorative shortened version) or 'Indian'. I think this is because it is impossible to tell from their appearance or accent which part of the Indian sub-continent they come from. Calling an Indian 'Pakistani' or vice versa is likely to irritate them as much as calling a Scot 'English'.

F

'Calling an Indian 'Pakistani' or vice versa is likely to irritate them as much as calling a Scot 'English'.'

Err, rather more, in my experience. My town has a large Asian community, all mixed up together. In fact one of my locals has an Indian landlord, and one a Pakistani. Every whitey in the town can tell the difference between the two accents, as a survival skill. .

As an aside, Cliff, the Pakistani, has taught me more 'paki' jokes than any white man.

Thinking about it, it probably pisses them off as much as calling an Englishman a frog would.

I am coming to mistrust nationalism or pride in one's nation more and more. I don't see any positives in national chauvinism. What positive message does putting a St George cross flag in your garden send compared to the negatives. I've experienced the thinly disguised Anglophobia displayed by some Scots under the excuse of supporting a national team. Its not big, it's not smart and it certainly isn't attractive.....

That story sounds unlikely to me, I suspect the word is much older than that.

In any case for a word to be offensive it has to offend people. No-one gets upset because you call them Asian, so pas de probleme.

well there was one bloke on the telly last night who, whilst maybe not upset, certainly seemed unimpressed, which is why I asked.

<>

I'd say more than a few Quebecois would object to being considered Canadian.

But my friend's boyfriend who is, um, Asian, says he prefers this term to the previous one - Oriental. He says that's what you call food dishes, not people.

az

I think in my online experience I've seen more threads on what language is and isn't offensive than on any other subject. There's a BBC messageboards site called "The Great Debate" where the subject must feature in over half the postings. Fortunately, I think it's a fascinating subject.

Language changes. What is acceptable today can be offensive tomorrow and vice versa. When we use language we do it to convey an intended meaning. Language is generally only offensive when it is delivered with a hateful or hurtful intent. If we are communicating via speech then this intent is obvious. If we are typing online, then this can easily be misconstrued or masked.

The words we use will have a "generally accepted" meaning, which changes over time, and which we need to be aware of. I would say that "Asian" is not now, nor has it ever been generally offensive. It may become offensive in the future, but I have seen no signs of this happening. The shortened term for Pakistani however is currently seen as generally offensive and should be avoided in impersonal communication. It wasn't offensive a few years ago, and it may not be in years to come, but this is nothing we can change. We have to wait for the rest of the English-speaking population to decide for themselves.

It might be offensive to someone who is a doctor to be called Asian. She may have spent five years studying hard and working to pay the bills in that time and some dipstick can only be arsed to latch onto her pale brown skin when she was born and bred in Smethwick. Is she a English or are other people just going to call her Asian?

Certainly Senegalese people would be mor confused by being called Asian as they are from a country in the west of Africa.

one love

Ah but the term isn't offensive in itself. In the same way that calling an English person 'French' might cause offence, but the term 'French' isn't in itself offensive.

I've managed to offend people by talking about kittens before , its not the words, its the order you put them together. Mostly.

>> But my friend's boyfriend who is, um, Asian, says he prefers this term to the previous one - Oriental. He says that's what you call food dishes, not people. <<

It is surprising how ignorance of a words meaning can cause offence when it is used in it's correct context.

oriental (often Oriental) —adj. of the East, esp. E. Asia; of the Orient. —n. native of the Orient.

and its opposite:

occidental —adj. 1 of the Occident. 2 western. —n. native of the Occident.

I have only ever been called occidental once and I wasn't offended. I suppose it's better than being call a gwylo which roughly translated from the Cantonese means "foreign devil".

Donald

I've been called many things but never an 'occidental'. I find it hard to imagine where that might come up, unless of course I was in another country that viewed me as such.

The problem with the word 'oriental' - I had no idea about this until this guy told me. He said he would rather be referred to as Asian.



az

"oriental" - now _that_ seems like a word from British colonialism.


blicky's point about calling someone from England who is of Asian descent, an Asian, is an interesting one. It happens in New Zealand alot, and I think it depends on the context. If you were discussing ethnic origin or possibly cultural identity then it might make sense, but there are alot of NZers of Chinese descent who's families have been in NZ for as long as the 'Europeans' so it's quite weird seeing the European descended NZers calling them Chinese. But of course as is obvious from this paragraph it's also a fair mouthful if you do actually want to identify someone by their ethnicity rather than their nationality. Whether it's offensive or not depends on why it is being done.

Mind you blicky did refer to me as British once .


'Asian' strikes me as being a useful word in the same way as 'European'. You might use it to refer to people/persons where you don't know the country of origin, which does happen quite alot.