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[–] 19177176? ago 

Yes, orientals always used to be the original terminology. It still exists, after a fashion - as you say, there needs to be some kind of distinction between asians and what americans would consider asians. In general, at least within the UK, there are 3 major subdivisions - nondescript "Asians" = normally just pakistan and bangaldesh, but also nepal and burma, then you have "east asians" (what americans think of when they say asians), and then "south east asians", which is basically everyone below china and to the right of india - vietnamese, thai, myanmar etc. The most confusing part of the terminology is actually what to call people like indonesians or from the phillipenes, since they could fall into multiple categories. I'm not aware of an overarching name normally used to group them, but if in doubt probably south east asians.

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[–] 19206666? ago 

People from the Philippines call themselves Filipino.

Then there are Pacific Islanders.

It's confusing.

In the tobacco industry, oriental tobaccos are not from China, I can say that much.

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[–] 19210241? ago 

Yes, pacific islanders would be the term used for the smaller island nations. Maybe papua new guinea too. But indonesian etc wouldn't obviously fall into that category either, which is weird.

Interesting point about oriental tobaccos though. What regions do they come from?