Korean Job Discussion Forums

[Dev]

I want to teach my students how we term the races in English.
What term can we use other than "Korean"?
Asian is too broad because it includes too many diverse cultures.
Oriental is an insulting term I hear.
North-East Asian is correct, but wordy.
I guess I have to go with Korean.

[Smee]

Depends where you're from. In the US, we use "Asian." Yeah, it's broad, and people often forget that the term would include the Middle East, as well . . . but look at "black' and "white." Those are really broad terms, too, but they're popular.

If it were me, I'd teach Asian, and maybe talk about the pros and cons of that title. (Maybe you could compare it to the broadness of "waygookin.")

[Moldy Rutabaga]

Without sermonizing, I would stress that we don't usually term the 'races' at all-- we tend to just say people are Asian or African or European or Australian or whatever and stress the geography. To me, saying Asian or more specifically Korean is close enough.

Ken:>

[Dev]

[R-Seoul]

Why is the term oriental insulting? In the UK Asian refers to people from the Indian subcontinent, and i think oriental is a common term used to describe Chinese, Korean, Japanese etc. but i could be wrong.

[nautilus]

[Smee]

As far as I know, "Oriental" is considered offensive in the US (don't know about Canada), but it's acceptable in the UK. I think it had something to do with how the "Orient" was imagined/exoticized/fetishized in the US over the decades/centuries. That should hold true for Europe, too, but at least in the US people get uppity if you call someone "Oriental." My grandpap does it, but younger generations are criticized if they do it.

[Hosub]

Just say East Asian for the triad of Korea, China, Japan.