Also worth saying as someone mentioned above it's often different in different countries. In the UK for instance the term 'Asian' very rarely if ever gets used to describe Chinese etc, whereas 'Oriental' does. The term 'Asian' in the UK is almost exclusively used for the Indian, Pakistani and similar communities. As far as I'm aware many Chinese in the UK (certainly all that I've known) are happy to be described as Oriental, although usually even happier to be called Chinese
