Wandering into the gaijins path - discreet communication?

Please consider whether you have noticed this happening to you and if it rings a bell, whether you have an opinion as to its basis:

On quite frequent occasions I have found myself encompassed by what seems to be an exaggerated avoidance of eye contact by my Japanese host fellows, be it on the train, walking down the crowded high street or shuffling down the aisles of a store. (For the record I am a fairly normal looking European).

However, I have noticed an surprisingly annoying number of Japanese folk "wandering" into my path. Often they seem to drift into my line of direction while watching the ground or sky - or sometimes they meet me at a 90 degree angle and sort of stop to contemplate whatevers on their mind. On other occassions I have these encounters with weaving cyclists.

In a more obvious situations I have found myself encrouched upon by natives which standing in line at a check-out in Bic Camera or waiting for the cable car at Takao-san.

In all cases I have concluded that Japanese dont do this kind of thing with each other - but my theory is that either

a) in their determined state of disregarding a foreigner, they convince themselves that he or she does not occupy space or,
b) they are engaging in a primitive form of communication - much as i often brainlessly tried bumping into girls I fancied at teenage discos...

Whats up with that?

machigatta yo

yukio_michael said:

Gaijin Greets

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Im not sure what that interesting thread says about Japanese nudging Gaijin while looking the other way. Please tell me more..

Many Japanese people find direct eye contact uncomfortable, so maybe they just pretend that they don't see you..That's normal among the Japanese. It's rude to stare at you, so they don't know what else to do other than to avoid eye contact. Some westerners smile at strangers, but that surprises many Japanese people..

I don't know what you mean by "wandering" into your path..
Personal space is different from one culture to another...Perhaps, it's smaller in Japan than where you come from. Can this be an answer to your question?

Crackpot said:

Im not sure what that interesting thread says about Japanese nudging Gaijin while looking the other way. Please tell me more..

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Sorry, I mistook your thread...

...relatedly, I find that a lot of Japanese people just do not look where they are going. Ever. I don't think it has anything to do w/ gaijin however.

I think it has more to do with limited space. You see, when a large number of people are confined in a small space, it is more likely that people bump into each other. As for avoiding eye contact, I think they secrectly look at you but they try hard not to have direct eye contact. I am not a gaijin (white man) so I don't know if it makes a difference or not being a gaijin...

godppgo said:

As for avoiding eye contact, I think they secrectly look at you but they try hard not to have direct eye contact.

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I agree on the latter part of this sentence, but isolated, I think some people just don't look where they are going.

godppgo said:

I am not a gaijin (white man) so I don't know if it makes a difference or not being a gaijin...

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Unless you were born of two Japanese parents and are of Japanese blood and ancestery, registered, you are considered to be gaijin.

godppgo said:

I think it has more to do with limited space. You see, when a large number of people are confined in a small space, it is more likely that people bump into each other. As for avoiding eye contact, I think they secrectly look at you but they try hard not to have direct eye contact. I am not a gaijin (white man) so I don't know if it makes a difference or not being a gaijin...

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A funny incident happened to me last week while reading a book on the Hibiya line at the weekend somewhere around Hiroo. I noticed from the corner of my eye a kid about 7 years old with his Dad beside me. The kid was staring at me and suddenly he reached out and touched the hairs on my left arm - sort of stroked them like they were the hairs on a terriers back. I thought it was bizarre and very funny.

yukio_michael said:

Unless you were born of two Japanese parents and are of Japanese blood and ancestery, registered, you are considered to be gaijin.

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I think he is talking about his appearance..taiwanese and Japanese are not that different.

yukio_michael said:

I agree on the latter part of this sentence, but isolated, I think some people just don't look where they are going.
Unless you were born of two Japanese parents and are of Japanese blood and ancestery, registered, you are considered to be gaijin.

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Yes technically I am a gaijin but gaijin is used more in the sense of a white man. This is same through out all asian countries. Even for oversea Japanese, they still use the word gaijin to describe others when they are in fact the "real" gaijin... So the word gaijin has lost its meaning as "a foreigner".

godppgo said:

Yes technically I am a gaijin but gaijin is used more in the sense of a white man. This is same through out all asian countries. Even for oversea Japanese, they still use the word gaijin to describe others when they are in fact the "real" gaijin... So the word gaijin has lost its meaning as "a foreigner".

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In conversations I've had directly with different Japanese people, living in Japan, they tend to still think of all non-Japanese as being gaijin. I don't think the word has been used as 'foreigner', rather I think the word means, 'outsider', but that is not a spacial reference, it more relates to the fact that the person in question is 'outside of', or seperate from, un-equal to, the Japanese race.

I think moreso that most people think that gaijin are white male, not that only white males should be refered to as gaijin.

*Oh, I'd like to add, that I use the term in the same way you do, but this is because I feel that Japan's idea of multi-ethnicity is a country with only Asians, disperate races they may be... I'm currently reading a book which covers this topic now, called Multiethnic Japan.

godppgo said:

Yes technically I am a gaijin but gaijin is used more in the sense of a white man. This is same through out all asian countries. Even for oversea Japanese, they still use the word gaijin to describe others when they are in fact the "real" gaijin... So the word gaijin has lost its meaning as "a foreigner".

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That's true..When I was in England, I was talking about "gaijins" there, and my Dad pointed out that I was in fact the gaijin in England..I didn't know. I was 6 years old.

Definitions of "gaijin":

窶堋ｪ窶堋｢ﾂ‐窶堋ｶ窶堙ｱﾂ〔ﾆ丹ﾆ陳照辰ﾂ‐ﾂ〕ﾂ【ﾅ?Oﾂ人ﾂ】
窶啀 ﾅ?Oﾂ坂?伉人ﾂ。窶愿≫?堙可、窶ｰﾂ｢窶｢ﾃ?人窶堙ｰ窶堋｢窶堋､ﾂ。
窶啣 窶吮?｡ﾅ?ﾃ藩?闇?O窶堙個人ﾂ。窶伉ｼﾂ人ﾂ。
ﾂ「ﾂ―窶堙?窶堙遺?堋ｫﾂ焦?窶堙俄?｢ﾂｺ窶ｹﾃｯ(窶堙絶?堙｢窶堋､窶堋ｮ)窶堙ｰ窶堙??堙??堙娯?堙鳴」ﾂ〈窶｢ﾂｽ窶ｰﾃ?・ﾋ?ｪﾂ〉

yukio_michael said:

In conversations I've had directly with different Japanese people, living in Japan, they tend to still think of all non-Japanese as being gaijin. I don't think the word has been used as 'foreigner', rather I think the word means, 'outsider', but that is not a spacial reference, it more relates to the fact that the person in question is 'outside of', or seperate from, un-equal to, the Japanese race.
I think moreso that most people think that gaijin are white male, not that only white males should be refered to as gaijin.
*Oh, I'd like to add, that I use the term in the same way you do, but this is because I feel that Japan's idea of multi-ethnicity is a country with only Asians, disperate races they may be... I'm currently reading a book which covers this topic now, called Multiethnic Japan.

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Sounds like an interesting book your're reading. Maybe you can open another thread and share with us your findings

I think the best way to interpret the word gaijin is "not my race people". This term is more applicable to westerners because their skin colors and facial forms are very distinct from Asians. I guess this is why gaijin is more used for describing white people. I am pretty sure there's a more politically correct term for describing foreigners, maybe some Japanses forum users can help us out here

gaijin

originally posted by godppgo.
I think the best way to interpret the word gaijin is "not my race people". This term is more applicable to westerners because their skin colors and facial forms are very distinct from Asians. I guess this is why gaijin is more used for describing white people.

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I totally agree with everything godppgo san said about the word "gaijin".
Korean and Chinese people, I never call them ﾂ「ﾅ?Oﾂ人ﾂ」 that's probably they look very similar to us Japanese.
If your nationality is French but your parents are Chinese and you look Asian, I won't probably call you ﾂ「ﾅ?Oﾂ人ﾂ」.
If you are living in Japan but your race is white, you are a ﾂ「ﾅ?Oﾂ人ﾂ」 for me.
The word "gaijin" has really lost it's original meaning that yukio_michael san mentioned.

I think also, it's different, comming from the United States, a nation made up ENTIRELY of immigrants, I tend to think of everyone who lives here, if they have been here a day, or for years, as Americans... it's just the way a lot of people think. If you are in New York, and you don't speak a lick of English, people will most likely just assume you're just another New Yorker.

There are racial issues, and stressors, etcetera, but not often of the 'go back to your own country' verity... Immigration reform... that's what I hope to see in the States.

Irony

Talk about irony. I just finished having an argument with a Japanese guy on another forum about the word gaijin and I just told him that if the word has a double-meaning and is not "just neutral" as he was trying to claim, then just tell me that. Earlier I had gotten really upset and likened the whole thing to how people in the New Orleans disaster were suspicious of the leeve's not being right, but they never spoke up and eventually it cost them.

Well I likened the lack of any kind of mobilization to act on their suspicions to the acceptance that the word gaijin had turned from foreigner into a word where pending on who was saying it to you they could actually be trying to intentionally insult you. Well, as time passed I learned that most people just accept that as a fact of being in Japan or dealing with the Japanese so I took it with a grain of salt and said well at least I know now that it really is going to be on the person who says it and how you take it.

But then the Japanese guy decides to start going ape over that old thread now, almost a year later as if it hadn't been sitting there for all of that time. We ended up arguing and then he seemed to get more upset when I told him that I had moved past worrying about that and it was pointless to go round-and-round now, but that only seemed to make him madder so eventually I made him feel the way that I am sure some non-Japanese in Japan have been made to feel by using English words and phrases that he couldn't grasp... he wasn't very happy about it.

Either way, I kept telling him, when I spoke on the word last year I said how it made me feel and you tried to talk like I had no right to feel like the word was being used derogatorily when you are talking to me and you're on an English speaking site and clearly not among a huge base of Japanese people as members here. That only seemed to make him angrier to see that he was now the gaijin on that forum. I guess it just seems like some Japanese have a notion that others should just accept whatever they say to them or whatever label they have ready to paste on them. A few of my Japanese penpals have told me that Japanese people don't like when they "label or put something or someone" in specific places, contexts, etc and then they shift or move.
I just found it odd that the guy was even angrier that I had told him that I moved past worrying about what gaijin means now that I have found people who will answer me honestly. It was just weird how he got more upset