Talk:Gaijin/Archive 4

message: Overall looks like a very balanced article, so nice work  people.  One important distinction to keep in mind is that between politeness and formality.  Formality is long, elevated speech.  Politeness is "what is appropriate for the occasion."  Thus a formal phrase is not necessarily polite, depending on the situation.  As I wrote, if your best friends started using formal speech (keigo) around you, they're being impolite. -Tachi 06:21, 14 May 2006 (UTC)
thread_title: Politeness vs. Formality

message: The articles seems fairly well written and balanced to me.  However, a topic as subjective as the meaning of the word in question really calls-out for a well-referenced, sourced article.  To me that means quoting a valid reference at the end of every sentence in the article that makes any kind of debatable assertion at all.  Even though that sounds like a lot of work (and it is), the result will be article that I think is less likely to be disputed.  Just my two cents.  One article that makes heavy use of the new Wikipedia footnote format to use as an example is Naval Battle of Guadalcanal. Cla68 17:15, 12 June 2006 (UTC)
thread_title: Footnotes Needed

message: We read:
:In the 2006 movie  The Fast and the Furious: Tokyo Drift, gaijin is defined as "outsider", although the Japanese word for "outsider" (someone who is not part of a group) is bugaisha (部外者).
I don't understand the point being made here. Putting aside the matter of what it means for a given word in one language to be "defined" as a given word in another (and perhaps "defined" here is simply a slip for "glossed"), why "although"? 
An uncontroversial analogy: The standard Japanese term meaning "camera" is of course kamera. But if I'm asked to gloss the Japanese term shashinki in English, I'll say it means "camera". The existence (and indeed vastly greater use of) kamera in the sense of "camera" needn't in any way dissuade anyone from saying that shashinki too means "camera". -- Hoary 09:23, 8 July 2006 (UTC)
thread_title: terms in translation

message: The link I put in is far from being commercial. The website in question is the complete opposite from being commercial. 
The only reason we put it in there is because it provides a free and needed service to Gaijin here in Japan. Whether or not you like the link, and whether or not the link should be in Wikipedia, the reason for removing it is bogus... Of course its fine if Wikipedia is not the place to put links, for this my appologies.
While I am here, I have been running a NPO website www.japanese2day.com for some years now, and it looks like there are a lot of good people with a good understanding of Japanese, would you like to help with the project? Its again, 100% not commercial.
:Perhaps you're right about the reason for removing the link being wrong. However, the link was described as NPO auction site for gaijin by gaijin, non commercial and always free. If this site is what it's claimed to be, its explanatory value for the term gaijin is only tangential. ¶ Actually I find it rather interesting, demonstrating as it does that the term gaijin is perceived as so dreadfully discriminatory and offensive that . . . er . . . that gaijin would flock to this site "for gaijin by gaijin". -- hoary gaijin 06:09, 26 July 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: But gawsh, it must be offensive! I mean, everyone says it is, so it must be! (Actually I don't even know what such an assertion means, which is why I raised it here. The brilliance and perceptiveness of my question stunned everyone into silence.) -- hoary gaijin 12:02, 28 July 2006 (UTC)
thread_title:  Link deleted 

message: Not familiar with this being used to describe foreigners acting Japanese. In my experience, it was quite the opposite—to describe foreigners with unfamiliar and alien habits. adamrice 01:24, 3 December 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: No, that's why this term is noteworthy.  A gaijin doing gaijin-y things is a perfectly normal gaijin; a gaijin doing Japanese things is a henna gaijin. Jpatokal 07:06, 3 December 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: I'm surprised to see that you've never run into the term. Actually, I disagree with the definition given in the article and above: in my experience (and how Japanese people have described its use to me), hen-na gaijin is usually a near-superlative comment about language ability (and not so much as whether someone "mimics" Japanese behaviour; apologies to Adam, though I believe his interpretation is plausible—as we say in the translation business, "it's all context: you can't interpret the meaning of a word outside its immediate context"). In any case, the meaning is more like "funny gaijin" than "strange gaijin", but your take is correct to the extent that the term is used in reference to gaijin who have managed to master Japanese beyond the Nihongo, jōzu desu, ne and the hontō ni jōzu desu, ne levels (which basically correspond to "Oh, I see you've tried to learn some Japanese" and "Oh, I see you speak a few words of Japanese") and mean s, basically, "wow, you can get around OK in Japanese!" (If you really speak Japanese well, people generally don't make any comments, or they comment about how little accent you have or ask if you grew up in Japan.) Anyhow, have fun. Jim_Lockhart 09:21, 3 December 2006 (UTC)
thread_title:  henna gaijin 

message: Though this is quite obviously the type of subject which can be discussed to extensive length, and thus this article can never truly be considered "complete", I think it gives a very balanced and academic view of the origin, meaning, and issues surrounding the term. Some of the "citations needed" are misplaced, I think, and I should like to remove them, but I won't do so unilaterally. In particular, (1) do we really need to cite that it is common in Japan to refer to people as Honya-san and Nikuya-san? It's one of the most basic lessons anyone covers in learning the language - it's not exactly a controversial argument that one should need to cite a scholar for; if we were arguing that this derives from a particular practice or belief, then perhaps one would need to cite it to prove it's true. But anyone who speaks the language at any level knows this fact. (2) the idea that Japan is a discriminatory society - so is France, the United States, the UK... this is not something that should need citing. But, again, otherwise, you all have done a great job of keeping this objective, and on an academic scale. It would have been easy to write something based solely on one's personal experiences in Japan, opinions based on watching anime, etc, but instead this reads like a serious sociological analysis. Thank you. LordAmeth 23:15, 15 December 2006 (UTC)
thread_title: Project Assessment

message: Since this is an article on, yes, foreigners, would an IPA representation of the word for the ignorant be too much to ask ... ? 87.112.86.134 02:40, 8 January 2007 (UTC)
thread_title:  pronunciation 

message: The Kojien entry for 外人（とひと） is as follows: 都のそとの田舎の人。また、いやしいこと。 万葉集（１６）「昔―あり、姓名詳らかならず」 A rough translation would be: "A person from the countryside.  Or a vulgar or shabby person."  I've edited the article to correspond with the citation. -- Exitmoose 01:05, 12 January 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: Actually, I see now that they weren't using the entry for とひと at all.  The Kojien entry for 外人（がいじん） has the following entries: ①仲間以外の人。疎遠な人。連理秘抄「‐など上手多からむ座にては」　②敵視すべき人。平家物語（１）「‐もなき所に兵具をととのへ」 This would seem to justify the original interpretation.  But since this is under the entry for gaijin, it seems there's no justification for the claim that the word, in this context, was tohito, especially when the above mentioned Kojien entry has no mention of the quotes cited or the definitions used.  I'll revert the article and then remove the mention of its "original" pronunciation -- Exitmoose 01:18, 12 January 2007 (UTC)

text: Where do you get "shabby" from いやしい? In any case, you people are seeking to justify your own prejudices about the current usage of gaijin on the basis of definitions of how it was used nearly a millenium ago. I think it would be better if you were to cite real (i.e., empirical, survey-based, descriptive) research on the word's usage in the current vernacular. "Real research" excludes tirades by parties with a political/social/ideological agenda. I also wonder why gaikokujin warrants a discrete article in Wikipedia when there are no comparable articles for words of similar character from other languages. Jim_Lockhart 02:40, 12 January 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: No, I'm just fact-checking the etymology of the word. Please don't make assumptions about my motivations.  As for いやしい, I get my definition from the ジーニアス和英辞書, though there are plenty of others that verify this defintion, including the dictionary at www.goo.ne.jp  The rest of your rant is irrelevent to my edits. -- Exitmoose 02:50, 12 January 2007 (UTC)

text: Pardon me for being ambiguous—I did not intend to be addressing Exitmoose personally (hence "you people"): my "rant" is directed at the article as a whole and the direction it always seems to take even after someone (not just me) goes to great lengths to remove the bias from it. My apologies for writing in a way that could plausibly be interpreted as a personal attack.This apology does not, however, change my stance on the article's content or the interpretation of いやしい. As I have stated elsewhere on this talk page, the meaning of a given word is always informed by the context it appears in. In this case, in the Kojien, we have いやしい in context with 田舎, and the definition is describing 外人 as used in the Nara/Heian periods (about a thousand years ago). In other words, back then it referred to someone from "outside the (capital) city"—in those days, someone who was commonly looked upon by the literary classes as a country bumpkin, of low status, uncultured; "low status" and "uncultured" or unsophisticated are the root meanings of いやしい, thus いやしい means "shabby" in that sense. I therefore believe that this part of Kojien's definition is basically irrelevant to how gaijin is used today; further, whether the character string 外人 was pronounced gaijin or tohito is moot: first, Japanese dictionaries do not always make such distinctions because they assume most of their users (readers) will already know which pronunciation to use in a given context; and second, most people who read waka would prefer the tohito because the appearance of kango in waka is a recent (post-Edo period) phenomenon.This article is still largely informed by content contributed by editors with a political motive—i.e., characterizing the Japanese as somehow more racist or foreigner-hostile than 1) they really are, and 2) other peoples who have highly homogeneous societies are. I find such selection of the Japanese for this type of criticism to be somewhat racist in itself: where are the articles on similar phenomenon among other peoples who at least claim a high degree of homogeneity or stress its importance to their national or ethnic identity (say, the Koreans)? If there are already such articles, why are there no links to them from this one? These comments and questions are not directed at any particular contributor, but rather to all contributors to this article. Jim_Lockhart 06:17, 13 January 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: I agree with your interpretation of いやしい in this context, though the article was reverted, so it's sort of a moot point, I suppose.  As for the more general complaints, I also agree that there's too much speculation and not enough hard evidence.  Access to the Japanese dictionary you cited above would be nice, but I, unfortunately can't get my hands on one.  While I think the etymology of the word has a place in the article (after all, it provides the very context the word is used in today), and yet I think we can trust the readers to be able to seperate out the archaic meaning from its more contemporary usage.  In any case, perhaps a more concerted effort needs to be made to cite sources.  Much of the information in this article is simply assumed as common knowledge, which I don't think can be done.  -- Exitmoose 07:08, 13 January 2007 (UTC)

text: Not to be overly argumentive, but part of my point is that gaijin=foreigners and gaijin=tohito, country bumpkin (etc.) are not really the same word. The former is a shortform for gaikokujin, whereas the latter is an archaic word used in a different era that just happens to look like the former. For instance, the entry for gaijin in the Shōgakukan kogo Daijiten (小学館　古語大辞典) (Shogakukan, 1983 and 1994; ISBN4-09-501231-5) makes no mention of foreigners—or even country folk, for that matter (ぐゎいじん is the contemporary orthography). This is evidence that including the Nara—Heian period word in the etymology of contemporary gaijin, though plausible, is actually misleading. Best regards, Jim_Lockhart 14:49, 13 January 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: I was the editor who originally asked for the few cited facts presented in this article to be cross-checked and verified. I'm pleased that Exitmoose went to the trouble of checking some of them. Thank you. That said, I completely agree with Jim Lockhart that the quality of this article is very disappointing. There are virtually no reputable sources cited in several sections other than a few questionable contributions as "external links" by Arudou Debito et al. (people who clearly have a political agenda), and as such, large sections should be deleted soon. The article is not encyclopedia quality, especially in the "Controversy" section where no citations are presented at all. (NB: I've looked in vain for citations in electronic libraries and internet databases and I can't find any verifiable sources to support them.) Surely this is not a good thing as it suggests original research (something Wikipedia policy explicitly forbids). What do other editors think? —— J Readings 23:12, 24 January 2007 (UTC)

text: Thanks for the edits, Exitmoose. I was reviewing the guidelines on what Wikipedia should and should not be. What's beginning to concern me (and probably  others) is guideline number 1.2, "Wikipedia is not a dictionary." My concern is that we cannot find any other publicly verifiable sources for these assertions outside of the Kojien. I reviewed some online academic literature that deal with linguistics today. I couldn't find anything in English (or Japanese) that we can use here as a cross-reference for many/most of these assertions. Like you, I don't like to rely on the Kojien for everything. Also, the "Usage" and "Controversy" sections still don't have any reputable third-party sources to any of the asserted opinions, save one or two small ones that I added myself (excluding the broadcasting guidelines). This is a serious problem. I'll keep looking. —— J Readings 13:44, 26 January 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: I do think the Kojien has its place, but you'd think it'd be easier to find some serious academic work on the subject in English.  I'm a little ambivalent about the "one source" tag applying to what essentially is a dictionary (perhaps the most well-grounded source around), but I can see the need for it.  In any case, I moved the tag to the appropriate section. Hopefully, we can find something else, but it seems so many of the articles out there actually cite Wikipedia, making it hard not to turn the whole thing into one big circle. -- Exitmoose 01:00, 29 January 2007 (UTC)
thread_title: Various Kojien Verifications

message: I've been racking my brains trying to find some good sources to back these claims up, both of which strike me as likely.  But as expected, it's been difficult finding a source that straightforwardly says "This is the way this word was used."  However, I have found some sources that imply what is claimed.  For instance http://www.keytokyo.org/community/learning/mm/mm05-02.pdf deals with how Koreans living in Japan were stripped of their citizenship.  It has a line that implies that Koreans were labelled 内国人 during the War, but it doesn't at all deal with the etymology of the term. http://beforestforever.blogspot.com/2005_06_12_beforestforever_archive.html might also be useful in verifying the "naikokujin/gaikokujin" claim. The "ihoujin" claim has been just as difficult.  Both these claims are fairly factual claims, so unless they can be verified, perhaps they should be removed from the article. -- Exitmoose 07:22, 12 January 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: I removed the following sentence until an editor can provide publicly verifiable source(s) for the assertion. "When the Tokugawa shogunate was forced to open Japan to foreign contact, Westerners were commonly referred to as ijin (, "different people"), a shortened form of ikokujin (, "different country people") or ihōjin (, "different motherland people"), terms previously used for Japanese from different feudal (that is, foreign) states." It's possible some Japanese may have used these terms for Westerners/foreigners, but the word "commonly" inserted into the sentence without a citation makes me think it belongs on the talk page for now. J Readings 10:13, 27 January 2007 (UTC)
thread_title: Providing justification for "ihoujin" and "naikokujin/gaikokujin" claims

message: I deleted "ethnic slurs" and "pejorative terms for people" from this article as there is no publicly verifiable information from reputable sources determining the word gaijin to fall under these two categories. Leaving it in place would violate NPOV. In fact, I think that it's appropriate to start deleting large sections of this article for original research and unsourced assertions as a reasonable amount of time has passed since the notice was first posted. —— J Readings 03:48, 25 January 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: I agree.  The entire "Controversy" section violates NOR.  I'd be inclined to agree with many of the statements there, but the fact that not a single outside source has been introduced in the last few months is telling.  The "Usage" section, while also devoid of sources, is a bit more benign.  "Controversy" should be radically altered or removed entirely. -- Exitmoose 04:17, 25 January 2007 (UTC)
thread_title: Categories

message: I deleted the hyperlink entitled "The Case for 'Gaijin as a Racist Word.'" It violates NOR, section 2.1 (reliable sources) and 6.1 (verifiability). Wikipedia policy states that "reliable sources" are "books and journals published by university presses; mainstream newspapers; and magazines and journals published by known publishing houses...Material that is self-published, whether on paper or online, is generally not regarded as reliable." Debito.org is a self-described personal homepage, not an electronic journal or newspaper. But far more importantly (and the real reason it should be deleted), the link violates 6.1 (verifiability) in that it was originally an e-mail sent to a few chat fora, and offers no publicly verifiable sources from accredited journals or sources that have a stated vetting process. Wikipedia policy prohibits personal blogs to be used as source of reliable information. Therefore, I'm removing it. 
The other three links have methodology problems with respect to the polling data (e.g., how large was the sample size?), but they're at least sourced from online newspapers, so I'm leaving them for now. —— J Readings 01:01, 26 January 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: I think the Debito material has room in the article as long as the material being cited is from his work in the "Japan Times".  I know he's written many articles on the subject for the "Zeitgeist" section, if the article is dealing with the current usage of the word, then Debito is a reasonably reliable source.  There's also his book, which I think could be a good source of information.  That said, I agree that personal emails posted on a website probably don't rise to the level of citable material. -- Exitmoose 01:56, 26 January 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: I see you guys are putting a lot of work into this, and I think it's getting better. I hope you'll take my criticisms in that context.Does the "Debito material" cite any sources? What I've read of work published by "Debito" is usually unreliably sourced, when sourced at all. (I must admit that I find most of it so mind-numbing that I haven't read a terribly lot of it.) My point is that just because it's published (e.g., in The Japan Times) doesn't mean it's reliable information. His book (and website) has been frequently debunked in numerous forums where such matters are discussed. Debito and his campaigns deserve mention, but I don't think his works should be used as sources for describing gaijin and the situation surrounding it.Debito aside, I've just checked the web page cited as the source for the following paragraph:The word gaijin is classified as "racial discrimination" (人種差別) and included on a common list of prohibited words used by Japanese broadcasters and publishers[5]. The list recommends the use of gaikokujin instead. However, adherence to these lists is voluntary, and its contents are often criticized as excessively cautious (see kotobagari). Gaijin is not listed on the Broadcasting Code master list of prohibited words that all TV and radio broadcasters adhere to.On reading the page and list, however, I notice that it does not claim gaijin is a sabetsu yōgo. The owner of the page also writes that the page is an unofficial list, one he initially drew up for a school project but never used, and that the list contains "sabetsugo and other words that certain persons could take offence at, as well as some that, while not discriminatory in normal usage, could be offensive depending on the context and therefore require care in their usage." That's a far cry from "classifying [gaijin] as 'racial[ly] discriminat[ory]'"! The wording "'racial discrimination' (人種差別)" don't even appear on the page.The first two paragraphs under the Controversy heading are another problem spot. In addition to being unsourced, they look like pure speculation and are pendantic. Who are "the two sides," and where did they come to the agreement about the obsoleteness of the ancient word and such? I'm not asking this because I don't know the answer, but rather because I wonder whether readers who haven't participated in discussions here will.Further, if "the two sides" agree that the old word/definition is obsolete, then why is it (the old word, as cited in Heike Monogatari) worthy of mention? Fact is, all the material about the old words (and how Chinese words like 紅毛人 are or were once used—not that Ch:手紙 and Jp:手紙 both look the same but are quite different) is conflated speculation that amounts to little more than folk etymology. It is misleading and should go.In a similar vein, what is the purpose of the "literal" renderings of these words—those such as "outside country (foreign) person" for 外国人 and "outside person" for 外人? I believe these literal renderings, as they stand, are potentially misleading and POV, because they appear (given the context most of this article seems to have been written in) to stress the "outside" component as if it somehow evinced a particularly strong insularity. 外国人 should be parsed 外国 (other country, country outside [one's] own) + 人 (person), hence "foreigner." This structure, by the way, is hardly unusual in other languages: Ausland, Ausländer (D); buitenland, buitenlander (NL); utland, utlänner (S).I think it's fine to be impassioned about a subject you (generic you) write about, but you also have to be sure you don't loose sight of reality. Although I appreciate all the work  fellow contributors are putting into this, a lot of this article is informed more by passion than fact. It's too heavy on argument and attempts at persuasion and too light on arm's length descriptions. Best regards, Jim_Lockhart 16:34, 26 January 2007 (UTC)
thread_title: External links

message: Jim Lockhart's interesting point that 外人 may have two distinct etymologies reminds me of the David Howard incident in January 15, 1999. Wikipedia records a brief entry of the incident under the title Niggardly. Some people confused the word "niggardly" to have the same etymology as the racial epithet "nigger" when, in fact, the etymologies were completely different. It's something to consider if we want to avoid a repeat of that issue. 
For now, let me offer a compromise. We can post a note requesting further cross-reference citations to support the material presented in that section for (say) a couple months, or whatever time-period seems reasonable to other editors who seriously want to improve this article. If no one can come up with a reliable third-party source from an academic publisher that corroborates the Kojien entries on 外人, we should delete the whole section until such time as it can be cross-referenced. Indeed, Wikipedia seems to have this problem in mind when the started up the "Fact and Reference Checking" project. What do other editors think? Is that a reasonable compromise? —— J Readings 00:41, 27 January 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: I think that's a good idea.  I can't help but feel it'd be a shame to lose so much material, but especially an article as politically charged as this one needs multiple sources.  And I'm sure they're out there, because we can all attest that there are no shortage of expats and Japanese debating the meaning of the "g-word". (wry smile) -- Exitmoose 01:06, 29 January 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: I think it's a good idea, too. In the past, I've gone in to heavily rewrite the article, but always felt bad about unilaterally excising so much material; yet it angered me that my work would also quickly be reworked to reflect precisely the views I was trying to neutralize. So in the spirit of Exitmoose's comment ("no shortage of expats ... debating the meaning"), I hope the article will merely describe, rather than seek to engage in, that debate. <wry smile back at you!> Jim_Lockhart 01:44, 29 January 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: Regarding the literal decomposition of the word 外人, I  am not convinced it can be presented SOLELY (and therefore factually) as "Outside + Person" without cross-referenced verifiable sources showing that it is a NPOV statement devoid of folk etymology or a political agenda (c.f. the current political agendas behind the decomposition of womyn and humyn). Now, before anyone gets upset, please try to understand how I arrived at this request for either a verifiable source or a re-write; I state this with nothing but good intentions. First, there is no citation (let alone cross-reference) directing the reader to a third-party academic source quoting the decomposition literally as such. This is not to say that one might not exist. If there are (preferably) two sources that literally describe this rendering, by all means, cite them for examination.  Second, some people naturally assume that the literal meaning must be translated into English using this description because that's the popular zeitgeist on the internet——even some journalists quickly decompose the word 外人 as "outside person." But is ("Outside + Person") a descriptive fact from a third-party source literally instructing us that this is an unquestionable fact of the Japanese language? To illustrate the problem, see what happens if we follow a selective bias when using Nelson's Japanese-English Character Dictionary (Tuttle, Second Revised Edition). The character 外 (from the Chinese) can obviously mean "outside, without, beside, beyond the scope of" in addition to its Japanese renderings, such as hazureru meaning "be off, come off, be dislocated, be disconnected, be off the hook (a phone), be unbuttoned, be unzipped." Now, here's where it gets interesting: how many editors would accept the same introductory sentence to read the following: "Gaijin (外人) contains only the character for hazureru (外, unzipped/unhinged) and hito (人, person), and hence literally means "unhinged person" or "unbuttoned person"? I doubt that many editors would find that to be a credible statement of fact without a citation. Fact is, the current sentence is a subtle attempt at POV without presenting the reader with facts. I agree with Jim Lockhart; it needs to be either re-written for NPOV or cited as an unquestionable statement of fact. ——J Readings 03:23, 30 January 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: I've agreed with most of your points, but this is one I can't understand.  The fact is that at some level, a fact becomes so obvious and general in nature as to defy citation. Any number of articles on Japanese things provide literal translations, which are neither "original research" in any normal sense of the word nor posess a "point of view". Now, whether the literal meaning of 外人 has a purpose in the article is another matter.  Perhaps it's simply irrelevent (something I'd be mildly ambivalent about). But 外 does mean "outside" and 人 means "person". If you insist that such a fact be appropriately cited, then any article would find itself in a sea of superflous superscript.  In any case, The American Heritage Dictionary contains the exact same literal meaning.  We could add another dictionary entry to the reference list, but I think something as elementary as the literal definition of a word doesn't need citation. -- Exitmoose 03:46, 30 January 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: Thanks for the comment. 外 also means "unzipped," "unhinged," "unbuttoned," etc. Context means everything in the world of professional translation. The point is that I don't think many people would accept the literal definition of "unhinged or unbuttoned person" because the English connotation suggests something that the original Japanese word doesn't even consider: namely, a mentally unbalanced person. Selectively choosing which English definitions of the characters to emphasize over other equally plausible constructs (e.g., 外国 (other country, country outside [one's] own) + 人 (person)) in the introductory sentence is potentially misleading and, in my opinion, POV. Also, Wikipedia seems to encourage cross-referencing for its articles in order to avoid many of the criticisms of this resource, including (but not limited to) reliability. They literally request that each sentence ideally be cited and cross-referenced. Is it wrong? I'm not sure I object, especially when some people inadvertently want to directly debate issues on Wikipedia rather than simply describe the known facts in a detached manner. As a small aside, the rendering of 外 in The American Heritage Dictionary' also notes that it can literally mean "foreign", not just "outside," which would be consistent with most English and Japanese dictionary definitions of the word as just meaning "foreigner" or "foreign national." —— J Readings 04:29, 30 January 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: Context is important, and that's precisely why using "unzipped" would be absurd, and "outside" is perfectly reasonable. Fair enough, AHD mentions "foreign" as well (probably as an abbreviation for 外国), and this could be added to the article.  On the other hand ,the sentence containing 外国人 states almost precisely what you request. Exactly as the article states, 外, 国, and 人 are the characters of that word, and the article is precisely correct about their meanings.  I don't see the lack of neutrality in that. What if we remove the POV-tag from the first statement and change the literal meaning of 外人 to "outside (foreign) person"? -- Exitmoose 05:56, 30 January 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: Exitmoose, I have problems with the wording of these two sentences (especially the latter sentence) given all of the dictionary (English and Japanese) explanations that I consulted on this matter, as well as their location within the article. Let me get back to you in a couple days after my workload subsides. Hopefully, I can outline my concerns better. Thanks for your patience. J Readings 23:06, 30 January 2007 (UTC)

text: Exitmoose may be right, but please remember my stance: the etymologies are almost useless for understanding the word's vernacular meaning—something I think most linguists (not speakers of languages other than their native, but people who study the evolution and function of language) will tell you. It is interesting—neigh, even fascinating—to see how other peoples put semantic elements together to form new words; but it is dangerous (as well as politically loaded) to make assumptions or assertions about the values they are therefore attaching to those words. And this is especially so when the analysis is being made in another language with its own value-baggage. Fact is, 外人 is a contraction of 外国人, so breaking it down into 外 and 人 is, in addition to being a mistaken parsing, a false assumption: One cannot expect accurate conclusions built on false assumptions.The semantic elements here are not "outside + person," but "other country + person". Linguists will also tell you that it is usually futile and almost always misleading to the break down the semantic elements of idiom into smaller pieces to understand them, because it is the meaning of the semantic unit, and not its constituent parts, that is significant. Best regards, Jim_Lockhart 04:58, 31 January 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: I see the point you're making. I've edited the article to remove discussion of individual kanji, and mentioned gaijin as a "common abbreviation of gaikokujin". -- Exitmoose 06:18, 31 January 2007 (UTC)
thread_title: Folk etymology

message: The most recent revisions by Sweetsntreats might have their place, but I think it's quite unfair to delete large sections of the article on the basis of it being uncited only to add more uncited material.  The material removed from the article might be editorial in nature, but that's no reason to replace it with editorial material from another perspective.  I'm rapidly coming to the belief that the "Controversy" section is hopelessly POV and a lightning rod for editors that want to elevate their own view.  I'm in favor of moving the entire section to the talk page until proper citation can be found. -- Exitmoose 00:08, 7 February 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: Today is 7 February. On 25 February, two months will have officially passed since the notice was first posted. I sympathize with Exitmoose's points about the "Controversy" section being a magnet for other POV material, but I think that, in the interest of fairness, we need to run out the clock on this problem. It's only a couple more weeks. I'm still looking myself (and I found some interesting things to be used for "Usage" section), but if we can't produce any citable material for the "Controversy" section by that time, we should delete it. If other editors object they can always argue their case in front of the Wikipedia administrators. To be honest, I would be very interested to see how they react to this case. -- J Readings 00:35, 7 February 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: Good point. -- Exitmoose 00:45, 7 February 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: Agreed. (Its being a magnet has been part of my thinking all along; it just never dawned on me to express it that way!) Jim_Lockhart 00:50, 7 February 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: I am fine with that.  As I stated on my talk page, I believe the entire Controversy section should be summed up in one sentence: "There is controversy surrounding the possible or perceived racial implications of this word,"  That said, I don't mind running out the clock.  However. is "the interest of fairness" a good reason to leave POV material available in an encyclopedia? Fairness to whom?   Maybe, in the interest of accuracy, it should all be deleted until citation can be provided. Then points can be added back in as they are verified. Sweetsntreats 03:59, 7 February 2007 (UTC)
thread_title: Recent edits and the "controversy" section

message: Small concern: I'm wondering if we need to change the dates on the "fact" tags. An automated bot was trolling by and tagged them all "February 2007," when in actual fact, some (most) of these tags were put in place well before that (e.g., December 2006). What should we do? Correct them or leave them alone? J Readings 02:38, 11 February 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: Corrected them. -- Exitmoose 01:39, 14 February 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: Thank you. -- J Readings 01:23, 18 February 2007 (UTC)
thread_title: Smackbot

message: Hakujin redirects here, but there is no mention of the term on the page. I'm wondering what we should do about that. I know that "hakujin" is a calque (apparently) of "white person". But do we find some way to put that in the article, or do we redirect "Hakujin" to Caucasian race, or what? - furrykef (Talk at me) 05:58, 17 February 2007 (UTC)
thread_title:  "Hakujin" 

message: According to the "gaijin" talk page archives, the following editors requested that most/all of the material in this controversial article contain publicly verifiable third-party sources: User:Ashibaka, User:Yoji Hajime, User: 61.27.54.213, User:Vapour, User:Hoary, User:BrianSmithson, User:ShizuokaSensei, User:Cla68, User:JALockhart, User:Exitmoose, User:J_Readings, and User:Sweetsntreats. 
Finally, on 25 December 2006, and consistent with WP guidelines, we added section tags requesting that all questionable assertions to the “Controversy” and “Usage” sections be sourced. The general consensus was that two months was sufficient time for the authors of these various contributions to find reliable sources for their claims. Nothing was forthcoming.
Seeing that today is 25 February 2007, the section will obviously be deleted now. The question is how. I vote that we remove the “Controversy” section from the article to the discussion page, unless other editors think that the section should be completely deleted from WP without a trace. Thoughts? -- J Readings 07:08, 25 February 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: Move to discussion page.  Some of the material might be useful as a base for research.  Section should definitely be moved from article page, however. -- Exitmoose 23:35, 25 February 2007 (UTC)
thread_title: "Controvesy" section: your time is up