According to you, where does Orient begin, where does it end?
Selon vous, où l'Orient commence-t-il, où finit-il ?
Ihre Meinung nach, wo fängt der Orient an, wo ist er zu Ende?
¿Según usted, dónde empieza el Oriente, dónde se acaba?
Secondo voi, dove comincia l'Oriente, dove finisce?
From: alpHa
Orient begins,
when I am looking at the sunset, lying on a desert beach or on the top of a snow rose painted mountain,
from the coming dawn...
When I am looking at the sun rising dawn, the end is just my next sunset.
And every morning we have our rebirth
And every night ...
alpHaM
From: SV
Dear NatHalie,
I really enjoy your pollings -) very unusual... like the whole person who invents them ;-)
Where is the Orient....???
Tough having "enjoyed" the german school system and being treated with latin for many years... sure I have to answer you that "oriens" means "east" or used as a verb "rise".
So globally seen with the kopernican view I would aswer "everywhere".
It is - like almost everything - a point of view.
Where is it east on a ball? Where the sun rises!
"Oriental" was always used as an adjective for "the unknown", "the strange" , "far away" , "mystical".
Beeing now, here, in the "old" orient, I figure that, for example, the "east/oriental"- Germans are more "strangers" to me than the thai people.
So does the Orient starts in Germany?
I guess it depends on the time and the individual and you will get quite different answers.
No... I am sure you didn't want a philosophical approach to this topic.... sorry.
Maybe it's interesting to ask who is calling himself "oriental".
The asian countries still do it nowadays!!
But for us, the europeans/americans, the initial geographical meaning was surely everything between Egypt & China.
With the years the east boundary of this vague term moved closer towards "us".
I guess our connotations now are more regarding the "muslime world" that is closer to us.... like "the near east" or "the middle east" countries.
But maybe you just wanted to know what the word Orient means to me....
Emotionally for me, orient is connected with "1001 nights" and "Alibaba".
I think of my chinese Tea house in the garden of "Sans Souci".
So concluding with your question: The word orient for me is not a geographical term anymore ... for me it is a location time.
For me the orient is locate in the 18th to 19th century.
SV
From: Dorio Lucich, a friend of NatHalie Braun Barends (Petsiré)
The orient begins for me every time I feel uneasy about my orientation in a new
place, town, city or situation. Feeling disoriented reminds me of the
artificiality of the distinctions - East - West, Occident - Orient.
And as yet I have never been to Asia, but for Turkey. I enjoyed playing on the
accepted geographic border of Occident and Orient, but found the distinction
held little credibility.
So, for me the Orient begins in Istanbul and ends in Japan. (Looking from Europe
or North America --- if you look from the west coast of North America, the
Orient begins on the horizon and ends in Istanbul - poor Hawaii!)