From: rhb@world.std.com (Robert H Brueckner)
Subject: Re: Who started all this gaijin myth?! (was Re: Genitals in Japan)
Organization: The World Public Access UNIX, Brookline, MA
Date: Sun, 22 Nov 1992 04:27:32 GMT

masuda@fcs280b.ncifcrf.gov (Michiaki Masuda) writes:

>In article <1992Nov20.135823.1@kosmos.wcc.govt.nz> quirke_a@kosmos.wcc.govt.nz writes:
>>rstevew@deeptht.armory.com (Richard Steven Walz) writes:
>>> rhb@world.std.com (Robert H Brueckner) writes:

>>>>Japanese, as any Japanese-surnamed individual ought to know, are
>>>>particularly thin-skinned about criticism, especially when it comes
>>>>from gaijin (read: racial inferiors, i.e., the rest of the world).

>>> Pretty inferior I guess we are, huh? They bomb Pearl, we're gaijin. We
>>> blow a couple cities to hell and flame Tokyo and Yokohama and a half
>>> dozen others and we're still gaijin.

>>   I believe 'gaijin' has a meaning more similar to "foreigners" or 
>>"Western barbarians" and carries the overtones of racial inferiority in that
>>it reflects any racist attitudes that the speaker holds.
>>   To be called a "gaijin" by a friend would not be an insult.

>  Here we go again.

>  I really cannot help feeling a smell of conspiracy. Someone must be
>teaching innocent "gaijin-san-tachi" that "gaijin" is an offensive
>word. Someone must be producing some scenario that friendly "gaijin" and
>hospitable Japanese end up hating each other.

>  Assuming that these "gaijin" netters represent an average population of
>"gaijin," I wonder how many "gaijin" already believe that "gaijin"
>is an insult.

>  Assuming that these "gaijin" netters have never learned Japanese,
>I wonder where they got that "gaijin" story. Is it time to take a poll?

>"Where did you learn that "gaijin" is a derogatory word?"

>  Thank god! Webster's dictionary still doesn't have "gaijin."
> 
>[An interesting conversation deleted.]

>>   (Please forgive me for crossposting the last para. to soc.japan) 

>  No problem. You should have come to s.c.japan a couple of days
>earlier to look at the "gaijin" flame war... 8-).

>--Michiaki

Again we see the slippery Japanese language in action. In fact, there
aren't many words in Japanese that can be pinned down as deliberately
insulting the way American swear words are. My point was not to flame the
word "gaijin" itself, but the attitude behind it. I am a "hakujin", which
is another semi-derogatory word. My Japanese friends use the word
"gaikokujin" (person from another country) to spare my feelings, where a
simple "gaijin" might seem to them impolite. It's as if I were to call
someone a foreigner in English. The delivery would be everything. The word
can be insulting or impartial. But my real point is that the Japanese do
regard everyone outside their group (however that group may be defined at
the moment) as in some sense "gaijin" or "outside people." 
-- 
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  "The truth is cruel, but it can be loved, and it makes free those who have
  loved it." -- George Santayana                 Reply to: rhb@world.std.com
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