Talk:Gaijin/Archive 5

message: We're told that: Sean in Fast and Furious: Tokyo Drift is called a gaijin. The main character of the video game Red Steel is called a gaijin. In the movie Tokyo Pop a Drag queen tells the main character Wendy about how he and her are "gaijin". Am I alone in finding this utterly uninteresting? -- Hoary 11:14, 1 March 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: You are not alone. I have no idea how this trivia is relevant. But there are other important problems, too. For instance, what is the source for the claim that the first mention of gaijin in Japanese literature is the Heike Monogatari? I assume this is the earliest mention the particular contributor could find of the character string 外人; I also don't know the source of his translation, but without the broader context, it's impossible to tell whether the translation is accurate (his interpretation of the meaning is based on Kojien,  which makes no claims about dates or whether Heike's is the first appearance). The claim that Heike Monogatari was written in the thirteenth century is also of dubious value, since its earliest transcriptions date from the late fourteenth and there are numerous variants (i.e., different lineages of books). We are also told that 外人 appears in the 1349 Renri Hishō (連理秘抄) and that "it is used to refer to a (Japanese) person who is a stranger, not a friend"—again, with no more source than Koujien. I'm not sure how these pre-Edo–period uses of gaijin are relevant to how the word is used today and would like to have any such relevance explained and documented (I assume the idea is to demonstrate that 外人 is by nature an "exclusionary" word, with the attendant insinuation that it is therefore derogatory in some people's value systems, though not necessarily that of the Japanese). Best regards, Jim_Lockhart 13:30, 1 March 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: I'm ambivalent about the fictional examples. They could be regarded as a useful reference for the "Usage" section. I noticed that there are several movies on the big and small screen with the title "Gaijin" made in Latin America, Europe and elsewhere. I'll be adding them to the "Usage" section with brief synopses if that's alright with other editors. That said, Jim Lockhart's comments on the etymology of the word are the reason why it's necessary to cross-check this entire section with third-party reliable academic sources. I'm paying a visit to the public library today in order to do some research on this subject, as well as the Broadcasting section on kotobagari. I'm not convinced that using some guy's personal homepage as a source for that subsection of "Usage" is appropriate, let alone factually correct. J Readings 
22:37, 1 March 2007 (UTC)
thread_title: Gosh, actual (well, fictional) ''examples''!

message: I have an electronic dictionary, and the entries for gaijin and gaikokujin are as follows:
: がいじん　外人　<白人＞ a Westerner; a European
: がいこくじん　外国人　a foreigner; people from [in] other countries
My experiences in Japan don't contradict this usage.Bennie13 03:01, 18 March 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: The article mentions this distinction under usage. Also, note the parenthetic "＜白人＞ in front of the gloss for 外人. I don't know which electronic dictionary you're using, but it looks like a good call. Jim_Lockhart 04:36, 18 March 2007 (UTC)
thread_title: Minor distinction?

message: I'm not really sure what to say, but I can't see any use at all for this section, and I consider myself rather tolerant of such sections.  It says absolutely nothing aside from "the word gaijin was used here."  Now, like I said in my edit summary, the usage of gaijin in culture is undoubtedly an interesting topic, but a mere listing of wherever gaijin was used would be ridiculously huge and an indiscriminate collection of information.  The section, should it be remade, needs things like considerations on usage, notable times it may have been censored or stuck in odd places, the usage for flavor, that kinda stuff.  SnowFire 01:17, 2 April 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: Snowfire, can you please give us a Wikipedia page on words that you're using as a model and why you think that page would be relevant to this one? That would be helpful, thanks. J Readings 04:43, 2 April 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: Sure.  It seems that the article has degenerated a bit since then, but this diff to Damsel in Distress shows the general idea (I had previously shaved the list here, as lots of entries there weren't even correct).  When were Damsels in distress used?  Why did they fall out of favor?  What advantages do they have to plots?  That kind of stuff.  My edit was later distributed throughout the whole article, which is fine.  SnowFire 05:33, 2 April 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: I agree with Snowfire on this matter, fwiw: I cannot see the relevance between how the gaijin is used in the vernacular and its example usages in the cultural “examples”. If anything, the examples provide a skewered view of its usage within Japanese context because they show usages outside this native context: They are representative of foreigners’ interpretations of how the word is used rather than of how it is used in and by Japanese. Do any of the examples even claim fidelity to real-life Japanese usage? (I’m asking.) I think these considerations, especially given the increasingly emotively charged atmosphere surrounding the expression among expats and their local hosts, should outweigh any precedents set by models in other Wikipedia articles. HTH, Jim_Lockhart 06:21, 2 April 2007 (UTC)
thread_title:  In culture section. 

message: May I offer a few general frustrations and observations about this gaijin article having closely followed the back-and-forth for the past year? 
My first frustration is that nobody seems to agree on what purpose this articles serves: is it supposed to be about the “controversy”? Is it supposed to be about the etymology and history of the word? Is it supposed to be about its modern-day usage, and if so in what language: English or Japanese or Brazilian Portuguese? What is the model for the article, and why are we sure it’s the appropriate model to emulate? 
My second frustration is linked to the first: there are virtually no sources, let alone cross-referenced sources, that present a descriptive and neutral presentation of all the alleged (and known) facts in this article—especially the “analysis” of the word itself. That alone should sound the alarm bells for WP editors that there is something seriously wrong here.  
My third frustration is the heaviest of all: read the WP archives for this article, like reading these yahoogroup chat fora, and you’ll notice that what sometimes (not always) passes for research is the equivalent of a barroom discussion. “Some of my Japanese friends tell me….” “I have foreign friends who think the word is derogatory…” “I am a Japanese native-speaker, therefore I am telling you that the word is not derogatory…” “I am a naturalized Japanese citizen, therefore I’m telling you the word is derogatory…” Light on facts, heavy on personal opinion and philosophy. Like it or not, all of that is “noise.” It’s private, non-verifiable (almost always erroneous) hearsay and speculation that circulate the internet in the form of assumed “facts” about the nature of the word. Yet, it keeps creeping into the article (viz. the article's current "broadcasting and publishing" section on the main page). What evidence is there to support the assertion that "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"? The source is some guy's personal homepage which is not—I repeat not—a reliable source for a controversial article. The only reason that I did not remove it is because I haven't finished my own research on the media yet. I figured, "Let it go for now; it's not libelous material."  
I strongly encourage everyone who wants to edit this article to follow the very informative discussions on Wikipedia:Reliable sources WP:RS, Wikipedia:Attribution WP:ATT, and Wikipedia:No original research WP:NOR. Those discussions and guidelines influenced why I stopped “editing-as-I-go.” With controversial subjects, I wanted to make sure that any generalized statements of fact are fairly well-researched before they entered the main article. This is why I haven’t added my preliminary research on the press guidelines and gaijin because: (1) how representative are these two newspapers (today) of the entire media, (2) when did these guidelines come into being, and (3) why did they come into being?  Without answering those three questions, it’s difficult to generalize about the nature of the word in Japanese or English...assuming that is even the purpose of the article. I just don't have enough to time to re-visit the library to do the research. 
Finally, let me stress that I’m not attacking anyone’s personal beliefs. I’m neither for nor against the usage of the word. I simply want to write an article that’s consistent with WP guidelines...all of them. It's frustrating. J Readings 09:06, 5 April 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: Yes many of the arguments here do seem anecdotal and chatty, even though this is the discussion page not the article, sourced points would be more compelling, will try to do that. RomaC 06:44, 6 April 2007 (UTC)
thread_title:  Frustrations and Observations 

message: At the risk of going off on a tangent, RomaC raised an interesting issue regarding the use of 外人, or gaijin, in academic works. To test the hypothesis that academics "avoid gaijin" in their published work for either reasons of malice, informality, or perhaps something else, I typed the keyword into Google Scholar. Anyone can access Google Scholar by going to the following URL: (Japanese) <http://scholar.google.com/advanced_scholar_search?q=%E5%A4%96%E4%BA%BA&hl=ja&lr=lang_ja> and (English) <http://scholar.google.com/advanced_scholar_search?hl=en&lr=>. Assuming it were true that the word 外人 is not used in academic papers because it's always been derogatory, for example, the number of hits should be very low to non-existent for papers not discussing the word itself. However, for Japanese-language papers, roughly 350 hits were registered. Moreover, the word 外人 seems to be used in published papers as  recently as 2006 by Tokai University. The title: 大相撲における女人禁制の研究IV : 外人観客の意識調査 (A Survey of Nix Women in the Sumo Ring IV : The Case of Gaijin spectators' opinions). Judging by the tone of the paper, the academic is simply referring to "foreigners" without any malice. If the Google Scholar search is opened up to include other languages with the word 外人, assuming everything is adjusted to the correct "Scholar Preferences," over 35,000 hits will be registered. Most of these hits are for academic papers written in either Mandarin, Taiwanese or Cantonese (I'm assuming — they're clearly not written in Japanese.)  I also typed gaijin into the English version: 291 hits. Obviously, the number of hits in each language don't tell us anything about the tone or context of the word use. For that, we would need to read each Japanese, English, or Chinese-language article and try to sort it all out. But just based on these preliminary findings without reading all of the articles we do know for a fact that the word is being used in what were (or are) presumably peer-reviewed academic publications. J Readings 16:34, 6 April 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: Good idea JR, did you / could you do comparative searches with the word "gaikokujin"? RomaC 06:40, 8 April 2007 (UTC)
thread_title: Published Academic Works and "Gaijin"

message: The purported source (http://monoroch.net/gallery/kinshi/index.html) is unreliable because:
*The name and credentials of the author are not available.
*The author states that he compiled the list as part of a summer school project that he never bothered to finish.
*The author provides no source(s).
*The author states that the list is of words whose use (unspecified) broadcasters, newspapers, and other media “self-regulate (自主規制している)” and that, in addition to “words, such as discriminatory words, that have insulting meanings for certain people,” the list includes “words that, while normally not [understood as] having any discriminatory connotations, should be used with discretion at certain times and in certain circumstances.” The list, however, does not differentiate between words that are (i.e., does not classify the words specifically as) discriminatory, potentially discriminatory, mildly insulting, or anything else. Further, the author also notes that the list also includes some words that are frequently used malapropos and should hence be avoided to avert misunderstandings.
*Nowhere does the author state that the list is one of prohibited words, much less making any statements as to who prohibits them other than those media companies that are avoiding their use, for whatever reason that may be.
*It is true that gaijin is not on any official regulatory lists, but this is only worthy of note in the context of someone's implying that it should be. The statement was also unsourced.
The previous section also contains unsourced statements saying the use of gaikokujin is practically limited to whites, and that the Japanese media use specific country origins for other Asian nationalities and ethnic groups. Since seeing this statement here, I’ve been observing how these words are used in news reporting on NHK and Fuji Television; my observations do not coincide with these statements: Specific nationalities seem to be mentioned whenever the nationality is known at the time of reporting or relevant, and gaikokujin (as well as gaikokujin-fū and gaikokujin no yō na) seems to be used for people of just about any nationality until their nationality is clear. (I’ve watched specifically for the transition from gaikokujin to Chinese, Korean, etc., and seen it.) So unless this material can be sourced reliably, I think it should be removed. Best regards, Jim_Lockhart 14:56, 3 May 2007 (UTC)
thread_title:  Why I removed the section about ''gaijin'' being on a  list of prohibited words (etc)