Orientalism in Dominions

[JimMorrison]

Originally Posted by HoneyBadger

Plus, I personally disagree-even with your Egyptian friend-in the idea that Egypt is somehow the Orient. That just doesn't jibe with me, even if I were to accept the whole "Orient vs Occident" motif.

According to the dictionary, "Orient" applies loosely to basically everything East of the Mediterranean. Egypt sort of straddles that line, I suppose. But I agree, it's kind of weird to make a distinction that "everything but Europe is Oriental" - as perhaps that was the paradigm of perspective at one time, but (I guess) at least as an American, I never saw that. I was taught that Africa and the Middle East are distinct entities, and the Orient would be all of the East Asian nations, not including any part of Russia or its subsidiaries.