The Orient and Other PC Discussion

[palapiku]

I like the use of "she" for White and "he" for Black. Maybe it's because I first saw it in Learn To Play Go books, which are a) very cute and silly and b) are written by a woman, and complaining she doesn't use the "gender-neutral" "he" would actually seem sexist. Plus it does make it easier to distinguish between the two players in the text (always saying black this, white that gets tiresome).

[Javaness]

I like the use of "she" for White and "he" for Black. Maybe it's because I first saw it in Learn To Play Go books, which are a) very cute and silly and b) are written by a woman, and complaining she doesn't use the "gender-neutral" "he" would actually seem sexist. Plus it does make it easier to distinguish between the two players in the text (always saying black this, white that gets tiresome).

If you want to give a positive image of, or for, feminity in Go, why not just work an example of a lady's achievements into your text, instead of pretending that your choice of gender for the stones presents some pair-go-esque world of 1:1 male-female ratio and harmony.

[Horibe]

Some people, including women, don't want to raise the profile of women in the game. For those of us that do, I believe that deliberately using 'he' and 'she' for separate colours is a banal, tokenist, and vaguely irritating attempt to do so. Besides, in reviews I normally say Black can be satisfied with their thickness rather than He can be satisfied with his thickness

It is amazing. I mean we can use words to make anything offensive, or to stretch any point.

Surely using "she" to represent the white stones is simply perpetuating an oldfashioned idealized notion of the purity of womanhood.

Seriously, if the players are fictional, what is the harm of throwing some "she"s in? Would men here be offended less if the holder of the black, traditionally weaker stones, were referred to as "she".

Personally I think it is a nice, non exclusionairy convention which allows some less confusing variations in sentence structure.

Perhaps it would be extreme for a feminist to insist on such a convention, but it seems equally extreme for folks to be so irritated by its very occaisional use.

[tapir]

I can't resist to point out:

- that Edward Said qualms were probably more about the approach than about the word.

- that saying America when actually talking about the United States, would probably qualify as US-centric in the bigger part of the Americas.

- that discussing whether white is female, male or simply white should probably discussed somewhere where it matters. (E.g. White as female is quite common on Sensei's Library.)

[Liisa]

To continue off-topic, I would like to state an obvious, that in yin-yang white is a male color and black represents a female. This is also traditional Oriental interpretation of go stone colors and their gender roles. Westerners might think something else and that is ok.

Chess is of course different game, because it has queens and princesses and rockinghorses and other cute little things, so it has build in female and male aspects so it is not sensible to associate gender roles for the colors themselves.

One thing that is a little annoying is that people usually refer to gobots as male, although the gender of gobot should be female.

[palapiku]

If you want to give a positive image of, or for, feminity in Go, why not just work an example of a lady's achievements into your text, instead of pretending that your choice of gender for the stones presents some pair-go-esque world of 1:1 male-female ratio and harmony.

Because the reason for using "he" and "she" is to distinguish black and white easier, and has nothing to do with positive image of femininity!

I don't care about the image of femininity in Go - I think the facts speak for themselves there.

[Diabolic]

I can't wait for the league to start.

Then we can all kibitz in wbaduk a game where Catalin, Alexandr or Ilja is playing as white against Diana or Svetlana. I can already feel the love you guys are going to get after you say "Ooh, what a tesuji he played" when in EuroGoTV we see Diana pressing the clock.

Unfortunately my dream ends when Robert jumps in in the middle of the game saying "Who said it was a black stone, that is not politically correct".

P.S.
Once in a day, could you check under what thread you are posting? And if what you are going to say does not feel right for the current thread subject, please just make a new one.

[daniel_the_smith]

Strawman (or woman, as the case may be). I doubt anyone is in favor of using gender pronouns incorrectly when the players are known.

[Kirby]

Merged from European Pro thread.

[cdybeijing]

Post removed. Duplicate from multiple thread merges.

[cdybeijing]

I cringe every time I read or hear a reference to "the Orient."

Since the poster of this message made me cringe by declining to explain the statement, I can't know exactly why he cringes. However, not very long ago a person from a family of Chinese origin living in the USA wrote to me about my frequent use of "Oriental" and said he, like some other people in the USA, found it pejorative. He was not really complaining but rather was puzzled because my usage of the term was clearly not meant to be pejorative!

I think it would therefore be useful, mostly for Americans, if I point out that, for historical and cultural reasons, we in Britain, and I think to a large degree other countries in Europe, have in our consciousness the many people of India and Pakistan who live here. They tend to prefer being classed as (British) Asians, and this usage is enshrined in many official government usages. We therefore often use Oriental for people from China, Japan and Korea. There is not, and as far as I know never has been, any suggestion of this being pejorative. People of this origin in Britain also use the term about themselves. A large supermarket near us in London run by Japanese and selling food from Japan, China, Korea, Thailand and Malaysia (but not from India or Pakistan) called itself, in huge neon letters The Oriental Centre. And I might add that within Japan they sometimes use the English word Oriental about themselves.

We do not exclude such people from Asia, of course, but when we refer to the CKJ countries in that way we often tend to say South-East Asia, although whether China is then included is often a matter of debate.

Such definitions are always fluid - I can well remember as a child finding it hard to get my head round some people calling the Middle East Asia (not wrong but it did confuse me) - and some people will have a slightly different take on the nuances. But I can say with certainty that "Oriental" or "the Orient" when it comes from this side of the Pond has nothing bad about it.

Wow, I had no idea how this thread had been blown up and separated off from the original thread because of my small comment. I don't follow the European Go Federation sub-forum very closely, so I missed all of this until now.

John, it's not a matter of political correctness. It's about the inadequacy of the term, and it's overwhelming ambiguity. It's scope is much larger than European or another term of such kind, and as you yourself suggested, what an American thinks when hearing it might be quite different from what a European hears.

The problem with the terms "Orient" and "Oriental", especially when capitalized, is that they are aberrations, representing something that can not really be said to exist in any coherent way. The words just make grave differences superflous.

[Joaz Banbeck]

Traditional Chinese geography had five directions, each matched with a color: north ( black ), south ( red ), east ( green ), west ( white ) and center ( yellow )

Shall we tell the Chinese that their "Yellow Mountain" in central China is too China-centric? Or their "Red River" in southern China? Or "Green Island" off of their eastern coast?

Shall we tell them also that calling their land "The Middle Kingdom" or "The Middle Country" is also a bit China-centric?

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The Japanese have long referred to Japan as the "Land of the Rising Sun", because it appeared to be the first land that the sun touched. Shall we tell them that that term is Nippon-centric? ( I suggest 'Land of the UCT+9 sun" )

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We all have terms for in-relation-to-where-I-am.

When those who object to the use of "Orient" or "Oriental" because it is Eurocentric object equally loudly to the terms mentioned above - when they tell the Japanese and Chinese that the very names of their countries are wrong - then I'll take them seriously. Otherwise I will not.

[Joaz Banbeck]

And can I use the term 'UTC'? It seems a bit Greenwich-centric.

[CarlJung]

To me "oriental" is not in the least pejorative. I might say that "I like oriental girls" where there is a hint of mystery or exoticism implied and it certainly beats reeling off a long list of countries.

And that, gentlemen, is one of the associations that makes the term demeaning--the suggestion that the orientals are nice little mysteries to be studied.

What's the PC word for conveying the same idea, if oriental can't be used?

[Bantari]

Traditional Chinese geography had five directions, each matched with a color: north ( black ), south ( red ), east ( green ), west ( white ) and center ( yellow )

Shall we tell the Chinese that their "Yellow Mountain" in central China is too China-centric? Or their "Red River" in southern China? Or "Green Island" off of their eastern coast?

Shall we tell them also that calling their land "The Middle Kingdom" or "The Middle Country" is also a bit China-centric?

-----------------

The Japanese have long referred to Japan as the "Land of the Rising Sun", because it appeared to be the first land that the sun touched. Shall we tell them that that term is Nippon-centric? ( I suggest 'Land of the UCT+9 sun" )

---------------
We all have terms for in-relation-to-where-I-am.

When those who object to the use of "Orient" or "Oriental" oject equally loudly to the terms mentioned above - when they tell The Japanese and Chinese that the very names of their countries are wrong - then I'll take them seriously. Otherwise I will not.

Exactly!

What's more, I have just spoke with a few Chinese scientists we have working for us, and the consensus was that they were ok with the words 'Orient' and 'Oriental'. My wife also does not have any problems with that. As a matter of fact, they all seem surprised that its even an issue.

I mean - I am not saying that there are no Oriental people who get offended at being called such, but who are they?