Dear Natalie, 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 countmes shill do in nowadavs.

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.