Is "Gaijin" a Racist Slur?

[gaijinalways]

caster 51 posted

if he is unknown, he would be Gaijin

So since you're unknown to me, you're a gaijin??!

Because foreigner is not a direct (or literal) translation of gaijin.
Just because foreigner means what it does in English has no weight on what gaijin means in Japanese.

Would 'non-Japanese' be a better translation? But then why is 'gaijin' not used for Asian looking foreigners as they certainly are not Japanese?

 

[Ayumi_K]

I just thought gaijin to mean "foreigner"
but i guess any word can be use in negative way though... it depends the attitude~

 

[caster51]

So since you're unknown to me, you're a gaijin??!

of course,If you dont have a typical Japanese monkey face
in general, Nobody might say the Japanese against Caucasian and black ppl etc.
if you are well known there, they would say where you are from concretely..
Does your wife call you a gaijin and introduce someone?
She will say where you came from.

But then why is 'gaijin' not used for Asian looking foreigners as they certainly are not Japanese?

because it is easy to define...
It tries to define it at least to some degree in gaijins as possble

it is as same as the relation between uchinanchu and naicha in okinawa

 

[bammbamm&pebbles]

But then why is 'gaijin' not used for Asian looking foreigners as they certainly are not Japanese?

Why is ' alien ' typically refers to someone Asian looking or Latin looking in the USA !? Despite the fact,there are a few million naturalized-Americans of formerly DP status ( displaced persons of post-WW 2 Europe ) and recent European immigrants.

 

[gaijinalways]

Why is ' alien ' typically refers to someone Asian looking or Latin looking in the USA !?

Actually it doesn't, as some Middle Eastern muslim Americans have found out to their surprise.

 

[Someone4373]

Hi there, I'm registering only to say this:

Gaijin is not racist, and it can pretty well be considered offensive. As many people pointed out, it means "non-japanese", it doesn't matter what anyone else says. In Brazil, still to this day Brazilians of Japanese descent refer to Brazilians not of Japanese descent as "gaijin". In more conservative families, Brazilians (of Japanese descent) don't even allow their Brazilian children (of Japanese descent) to date or marry the "foreigners". If it really meant "foreigner", then the gaijin wouldn't be gaijin, nor the ones of Japanese descent would be something different of the other Brazilians.

Before you think this just happens in Brazil, it's a customary habit that the Japanese immigrants took with them and taught it to their children. It even happens in very distant places, such as Hawaii. You can notice a testimonial of a "gaijin" in the Japanese wikipedia.
h ttp : //ja.wikipedia.org/wiki/%E3%83%8E%E3%83%BC%E3%83%88:%E5%A4%96%E4%BA%BA

Just thought I would point all this out. I don't mind being called gaijin in Japan, but to be called "foreigner" in my own country (Burajiru) is an absurd.

 

[A ke bono kane kotto]

After reading the posts on this forum I think that the term "gaijin" is used in the same way as the ancient Greeks used "barbarian" or barbaros, anybody who isn't of Greek ethnicity or culture.

 

[caster51]

I think that the term "gaijin" is used in the same way as the ancient Greeks used "barbarian" or barbaros, anybody who isn't of Greek ethnicity or culture.

barbarian= yaban-jin(窶禿ｬ窶敕伉人ﾂ）