Breja: I had no idea it could be or was considered offensive. And why would it? No one finds the terms "western" or "western world" offensive. It's simply a descriptor, no different than "Eastern Europe". I don't know, maybe it was a bit different in the english speaking world, but in Poland the word "orientalny" has absolutely no negative connotations (if anything it's quite the contrary). And I guess it's probably still more commonly in use here.
Covering over BanditKeith2's
terrible explanation, there's more nuance to things than they're implying. Recall if you will, the
massive propaganda machine that the World Wars were. In essence, the entire stratum of Asia ended up getting painted much the same as the former image of
Darkest Africa. Including cultural stereotypes such as voodoo, tower masks, shrunken heads, headhunters, and more. Please note in your copybooks the items that don't even belong to African Cultures.
The gist being, someone from Laos isn't going to have the same culture as someone from Korea. "Oriental" makes the same broad strokes in English as assuming that everyone from Africa practices Voodoo.
For more concrete evidence as to why
Oriental is a bad choice, see the confused replies directly below. (12 & 13)