Surely the meaning of 'gaijin' is contextual?!

William Spencer · 23 Apr 2007

Hi there...i have been reading the posts about gaijin with interest, especially those which express the view that 'gaijin' is a pejorative term or not. let me suggest and ask for your comments about this: gaijin changes it's meaning depending on the context. firstly there is 'gaikokujin' and 'gaijin' : are these two words exactly the same in meaning and usage? to my way of thinking, 'gaijin' = westerner (white or black, though this may be questioned) not rarely asian background (is this true?), that is, a certain image is constructed when this word is uttered. but how about a gaikokujin nikutairoodoosha...this sounds to me that the person is not a stereotyped westerner teaching is a nova english conversation school but someone quite different. is the usage of either gaikokujin or gaijin disappearing in japan? or is it alive and healthy? are only non-japanese obsessed with gaijin? any views would be helpful...☝

ArmandV · 23 Apr 2007

I would agree that the use of "gaijin" could have different meanings and it would depend upon the context. I have not heard any Japanese person use it.

KirinMan · 23 Apr 2007

William Spencer said:
is the usage of either gaikokujin or gaijin disappearing in japan? or is it alive and healthy? are only non-japanese obsessed with gaijin? any views would be helpful...☝

ArmandV said:
I would agree that the use of "gaijin" could have different meanings and it would depend upon the context. I have not heard any Japanese person use it.

Where I live the word "gaijin" is used more frequently than "gaikokujin", and yes in my opinion it is the non-Japanese people that are "obsessed" with the use of the word.

Personally it doesn't bother me a bit when people call me "gaijin", I also think you will find that people posting here who have been living here in Japan for for a long time, maybe 10 years or more really do not make a big deal about it.

There may be exceptions to that, as there have been other threads here on this subject and that is what I gleened from reading them. That is of course my impression from reading them, not to speak for others here.

In my opinion it is the people that are relatively new to Japan that are more sensitive to it's usage.

Mike Cash · 23 Apr 2007

Pachipro · 24 Apr 2007

LOL! Couldn't have said it better Mike! And a picture sure does say a thousand words! Thanks

Elizabeth · 24 Apr 2007

William Spencer said:
Hi there...i have been reading the posts about gaijin with interest, especially those which express the view that 'gaijin' is a pejorative term or not. let me suggest and ask for your comments about this: gaijin changes it's meaning depending on the context. firstly there is 'gaikokujin' and 'gaijin' : are these two words exactly the same in meaning and usage? to my way of thinking, 'gaijin' = westerner (white or black, though this may be questioned) not rarely asian background (is this true?), that is, a certain image is constructed when this word is uttered. but how about a gaikokujin nikutairoodoosha...this sounds to me that the person is not a stereotyped westerner teaching is a nova english conversation school but someone quite different.

Gaikokujin is used more in business or legal contexts. I would also consider it more formal/polite, but with no difference in underlying meaning. You must not have chosen the right gaijin thread because your example makes absolutely no sense to me.

KirinMan · 24 Apr 2007

You must not have chosen the right gaijin thread because your example makes absolutely no sense to me.

Long day there Elizabeth?

He started his own thread on this contextual problem.

Elizabeth · 24 Apr 2007

Obeika said:
Long day there Elizabeth?
He started his own thread on this contextual problem.

Yes, but of course a manual laborer (if they are foreign at all, I would imagine to be Korean, Chinese or from other Asian descent, 'not rarely Asian' may have been a slip of the hand) is different than a 'stereotypical NOVA' teacher. Is the point that 'gaijin' is more pejorative because it is assumed to be aimed at Westerners and gaikokujin at other Asians, even in capacities as low as farm hands or field workers ?

Anyway, LOL ﾂ≫? Mike and let's stop talking nonsense here.

William Spencer · 24 Apr 2007

while i laughed at mike's animation and pachipro's comment, i'm not too certain why the topic is such a dead horse. i don't live in japan any longer so therefore that may have something to do with it. however, there's so little about the construction of gaijin/gaikokujin-ness etc. in the academic literature that, as a part of the discourse on cosmopolitanism, it seems worthy of further study. perhaps the questions were not that good. what question(s) could be asked?
☝

Is the point that 'gaijin' is more pejorative because it is assumed to be aimed at Westerners and gaikokujin at other Asians, even in capacities as low as farm hands or field workers ?
Anyway, LOL ﾂ≫? Mike and let's stop talking nonsense here.

so i guess what you and mike are saying is that this topic has been done to death on this forum? nonsense? i still don't get it? please explain!

:?

Pachipro · 24 Apr 2007

While the question was a good one, and one that often comes up, it has been debated here since the birth of Jref. There are numerous different posts discussing the use of the word such as "Is 'Gaijin' a Racist Slur?" or "What connotation does the term 'gaijin' have for you?" Thus the comments although they were not ment to disparage you.

I thought about commenting on your question, but thought to myself, "I've done this time and time again in the past and would only be repeating myself." If I feel I have anything new to add, I will be glad to comment. I just don't want to participate in another rehashing of the subject when there are so many other threads on the subject.

Elizabeth · 24 Apr 2007

so i guess what you and mike are saying is that this topic has been done to death on this forum? nonsense? i still don't get it? please explain!
:?

I'm not even sure what question you were trying to ask much less the underlying premises. If you wanted to discuss the difference between gaijin and gaikokujin, that is part of the debate that hasn't been covered as well here. Most people that don't live in Japan or speak the language probably haven't heard gaikokujin.

Like I said, the statement of Westerners being gaijin and other Asians referred to as gaikokujin (presumably), with an example looking at the relative status of a manual labor (other Asian) vs. NOVA was what I didn't get...

William Spencer · 24 Apr 2007

Pachipro said:
Thus the comments although they were not ment to disparage you.

but this is exactly what has happened, that is, disparage me...i have only been here a short time and have not read archive on this web site...

William Spencer · 24 Apr 2007

Elizabeth said:
Like I said, the statement of Westerners being gaijin and other Asians referred to as gaikokujin (presumably), with an example looking at the relative status of a manual labor (other Asian) vs. NOVA was what I didn't get...

elizabeth, from noting your status and the amount of times you have posted in this site, you seem fairly active here. i am merely a novice so my learning curve is rather steep in terms of posting questions that haven't been raised before about a topic on which seems to have been deemed not worth discussing. fine i take the point.

the question was trying to get at the heart of who is called a 'gaijin' and who is not based on what they look like. i was stereotyping to gauge the group's responses as to when someone might say 'gaijin da' or something else. given the debate about native and non-native english (/japanese) teachers, i wanted to understand whether 'gaijin' (that is the stereotypical blond haired blue eyed man/woman) has an inherent status attached to it or whether it can generalised more to include rather than exclude.

but as i have read here, the topic has been done to death so much so that regulars just don't want to revisit it. wakatta.

i have noticed though that there is a smiley for a japanese:

:nihonjin:

but not one for gaijin or gaikokujin which seem to say i guess that neither are able to represented in this form because of diversity.

:banghead:

william

Mikawa Ossan · 24 Apr 2007

I'm sorry about the response you have received here, William.

Recently there seems to be a lot of angst against topics that have been discussed in the past, and some members are not shy about voicing their displeasure. (If anyone wishes to discuss this further, please do it here. Any further posts on this thread about "beating dead horses" will be moved there anyway.)

Please continue with your current line of questioning, William, and I invite members who do not wish to discuss it further simply not to.

Elizabeth · 24 Apr 2007

William Spencer said:
elizabeth, from noting your status and the amount of times you have posted in this site, you seem fairly active here. i am merely a novice so my learning curve is rather steep in terms of posting questions that haven't been raised before about a topic on which seems to have been deemed not worth discussing. fine i take the point.
the question was trying to get at the heart of who is called a 'gaijin' and who is not based on what they look like. i was stereotyping to gauge the group's responses as to when someone might say 'gaijin da' or something else. given the debate about native and non-native english (/japanese) teachers, i wanted to understand whether 'gaijin' (that is the stereotypical blond haired blue eyed man/woman) has an inherent status attached to it or whether it can generalised more to include rather than exclude.
but as i have read here, the topic has been done to death so much so that regulars just don't want to revisit it. wakatta.

William,

Thanks for the clarification ! I think I understand now and didn't intend to sound as rude as maybe the earlier post actually did. I for one don't mind revisiting old questions. It's just that gaijin is already used to refer to foreigners in general, or more specifically anyone that was not born in Japan. Do you mean whether some foreigners have a higher status attached to them than others ?

So maybe that was causing some of the confusion. Plus, you said you were already reading these threads with interest....

KirinMan · 24 Apr 2007

William, I think I answered your question quite properly, however I do think that using the search function on a message board before starting a new thread about something that may have been discussed before is a good piece of advice for not only new members but older members that are unsure if a topic has been discussed or not.

Just to make you feel a bit better here, I hope anyway, here is a link to an old thread about this subject of reviving old threads, hopefully people will think of me as being an archivist and not a necrmancer
btw it is from Oct 2005.

Necromancing & tagging along in someone else's reading ?

Mike Cash · 24 Apr 2007

William Spencer said:
while i laughed at mike's animation and pachipro's comment, i'm not too certain why the topic is such a dead horse.

Because I've seen every possible take on the topic hashed, rehashed, and re-rehashed for over 20 years now. It's the first thing gaijins like to agonize over as soon as they find out they are gaijins.

Is the point that 'gaijin' is more pejorative because it is assumed to be aimed at Westerners and gaikokujin at other Asians, even in capacities as low as farm hands or field workers ?

All labor that uplifts humanity has dignity and importance and should be undertaken with painstaking excellence. - Martin Luther King, Jr.

No race can prosper until it learns there is as much dignity in tilling a field as in writing a poem. - Booker T. Washington

I reject your premise that farm hands and field workers are in a "low" capacity. Something you might want to think about the next time you maneuver a spoonful of something into your face.

Mikawa Ossan · 24 Apr 2007

Mike Cash said:
Because I've seen every possible take on the topic hashed, rehashed, and re-rehashed for over 20 years now. It's the first thing gaijins like to agonize over as soon as they find out they are gaijins.

Fine, Mike, but please don't take it out on the new poster! (William has 14 posts at the time of this posting.)

All labor that uplifts humanity has dignity and importance and should be undertaken with painstaking excellence. - Martin Luther King, Jr.
No race can prosper until it learns there is as much dignity in tilling a field as in writing a poem. - Booker T. Washington
I reject your premise that farm hands and field workers are in a "low" capacity.

Good point here!

Mike Cash · 24 Apr 2007

Mikawa Ossan said:
Fine, Mike, but please don't take it out on the new poster! (William has 14 posts at the time of this posting.)

I was just offering clarification (which he seemed to be seeking), not condemnation.

William Spencer · 25 Apr 2007

forget it. my japanese partner warned me of posting in sites like these. this may not be 2 channeru but phew it feels like it.
we all make certain choices in language. there was no intention to deride any worker mike cash. white collar/blue collar may have been better choices. i wanted to gauge to whom the word 'gaijin' is being directed to in japan at the present. i have been round the same types of discussion for many years given my long history dealing with japan however there's very little in the academic lit. about this topic hence a study i am doing to seek some answers which, while may appear to be flogging a dead horse, need some attention. i am sensitive to previous discussions, so i thought my original post was more a question of language usage by japanese and non-japanese rather than say answers contained in the two threads that pachipro suggested i look at (i have). e.g. in Oguri Saori's manga 'daarin wa gaikokujin' she chooses 'gaikokujin'. why? is it, as elizabeth suggests, for formal/politeness reasons? i wonder. you know when i was writing responses yesterday i thought about one of the questions asked in the survey i am using in my project about how gaijin exert power over other gaijin. it seems that that question is partly answered here. i have learned from these interactions so far that the unexpecting get pounced on pretty hard. if i post again in gaijin shock, i will be much more circumspect about anything i write.

gaijinalways · 25 Apr 2007

Am I the only one who thought Mike's picture showed a dead camel? Couldn't be the brand, could it?

undrentide · 25 Apr 2007

As far as I know, to most Japanese (including myself) the word "gaikokujin" and "gaijin" mean the same - person from abroad, or people without Japanese citizenship.
It has nothing to do with the "type (nationality, race, their job, etc)" of the foreigners (non-Japanese) we are referring to.

The difference between the two words are maybe of its origin.
Gaijin is much older, I believe, and it originally means "people from outside" or "people who don't belong to the same group (of the speaker)".
Gaikokujin means "foreign people".ﾂ
"Gaijin" seems to be used in colloquial situation while official documents and announcement always seem to be using "gaikokujin".

How these two words (gaijin/gaikokujin) are perceived is a different story.

I don't know why Oguri Sayuri chose the word gaikokujin, it could be because it is more "official/formal" sounding word, or maybe for the same reason as mine: I do not use the word "gaijin" myself simply because some foreign people regard it as a derogatory word (maybe it is linked to their bad experience, I guess) and take offence.
I personally think that the word "gaijin" is neutral and does not have particular (positive/negative) connotation, but I don't want to offend anyone unintentionally.

-- edit (addition) --
Maybe showing the kanji used for those two words make it easy to understand.

ﾅ?Oﾂ人 gaijin (person from outside)
ﾅ?Oﾂ坂?伉人 gaikokujin (person from outside country = foreign country)

ﾅ?O : outside, out
ﾂ坂? : country, nation
ﾂ人 : person, people

epigene · 25 Apr 2007

I agree totally with undrentide regarding the use of "gaijin" and "gaikokujin."

However, coming from a generation older than undrentide's, I'll just add that "gaikokujin" was not used when I was young. Every foreign national was "gaijin."
I began to hear "gaikokujin" I think when I was in my 20s in the news and in official documents. I believe it originated from bureaucratese and spread to common use.

Mike Cash · 25 Apr 2007

My guess is that she chose "gaikokujin" because it is seen as more acceptable and "PC" to foreigners and she didn't care to be pounced upon.

Mikawa Ossan · 27 Apr 2007

I essentially agree with everything that undrentide and epigene have stated, but I would like to add my two bits to the fray.

It seems to me that "gaikokujin" is a bit more precise in meaning than "gaijin". "Gaikokujin" refers to anyone of a country other than Japan. "Gaijin" technically is the same, but taken on its own with no context, it seems to have a certain connotation implying white foreigners in popular usage.

I think "gaikokujin" also sounds a little more 'soft' than "gaijin," and I actually think that was the reason behind the choice of that word in the title rather than "gaijin". Also, the cadence of the title with "gaikokujin" sounds much smoother than with "gaijin." If it is "Daarin ha gaijin", it sounds very abrupt and somewhat lacking.

Surely the meaning of 'gaijin' is contextual?!

先輩

Eight Times To Japan

後輩

骨も命も皆此の土地に埋めよう

JREF Resident Alien

先輩

後輩

先輩

先輩

JREF Resident Alien

先輩

先輩

先輩

いかんわ！

先輩

後輩

骨も命も皆此の土地に埋めよう

いかんわ！

骨も命も皆此の土地に埋めよう

先輩

puzzled gaijin

Japa'n vagyok

相変わらず不束者です

骨も命も皆此の土地に埋めよう

いかんわ！

Similar threads