> The qualification here mostly means "not Chinese". Well, and not Islamic. The West is 'European,' so Roman North Africa & Roman Anatolia were Western. 'Nea

> The qualification here mostly means "not Chinese". Well, and not Islamic. The West is 'European,' so Roman North Africa & Roman Anatolia were Western. 'Near East' or 'Middle East' mean the now-Islamic world (much of it was Western pre-conquest). 'Far East' mean Chinese or Japanese. At one point I think 'Oriental' (a word just meaning 'Eastern') could also apply to folks from the Indian subcontinent, but that's pretty rare to nonexistent nowadays.