Changing with language

August is the month where old stories are most likely to resurface with new spins. Nothing wrong with that: in today’s super-fast-paced news cycle, people may well have missed these stories the first time round. The “oriental” debate is one such story.

The perfume industry has used the term in its marketing for decades. Western designers and perfumiers have long looked to the East for olfactory inspiration (Guerlain’s Shalimar and Yves Saint Laurent’s Opium, to name but two), but a backlash has been growing steadily for years. As is frequently the case, the most vocal protesters have used TikTok as their platform, making compelling videos to explain their issues with the term. One even questioned what “the East” is anyway. East of where? (Answer: of Paris, the city considered to be the epicentre of the perfume industry). 

If you are a white person living in Paris, this may blow your mind. The East will always be the East, and you may always struggle to see “oriental” as problematic. But whether people have used it innocently and without malevolent intention is not the point. The point is that many within the Asian community find it offensive, reductive and perpetuating of racist stereotypes. This is not a white person’s right to judge. Our only action should be to listen.

We all need to be aware how language changes over time, and we should change with it. For a deeper dive into the subject, seek out Han Teng (@theperfumemenagerie) on TikTok, whose parents are refugees from the Vietnam war, and whose argument is persuasive.