Talk:Gaijin/Archive 3

message: Wondering what all the fuss was about -- or rather, why a single Japanese word that's little used outside Japan merits an entire article in what's supposed to be an English-language encyclopedia -- I clicked on the external link billed as "Is the word 'Gaijin' derogatory? - A discussion by expatriates" (it's this). In it, some person calling him/herself "Mandrake" (a Linux user? who knows) kicks off a "discussion" by making various unsupported assertions about the relationship between gaijin, etc., and "foriegners" or "foriengers" (spelling is not Mandrake's forte). Mandrake doesn't even distinguish between (a) the question of whether gaijin is intended as pejorative, and (b) the question of whether people find gaijin pejorative when used to referred to them. So what kind of "discussion" of gaijin follows this? It's spread across two web pages (at least as I read it), and on the first, there's almost no discussion at all, but rather miscellaneous amiable blather about the perceived offensiveness of farang, etc. On the second page (as I see it), "Yohan", who appears to be Japanese, states that gaijin is not [intended as] offensive. And that's it.
This seems to me an excellent example of the kind of external link that adds nothing.
I don't argue that Japanese society is, in various ways, seriously screwed up. (For example, the systemic discrimination against women, who even now are widely viewed as decorative -- or, sadly, failing to be decorative -- and disposable.) And I don't deny that the word gaijin is (rightly or wrongly) often perceived to be pejorative. (I've a hunch that a major reason is that new arrivals in Japan are told by earlier arrivals, whose command of Japanese is often poor, that it's pejorative; and they know that because they were told the same thing when they arrived.) 
Well, go ahead, preserve this article. But I suggest trimming the links to those that say something lucidly and persuasively. (Another link tells us, inter alia, that "GAIKOKUJIN AND GAIJIN ARE PROBLEM WORDS THAT ARE TOO EASILY ABUSED, AND PEOPLE MUST BE TOLD THAT WHEN THEY ABUSE THEM" -- yes, all in full capitals.) -- Hoary 01:59, 19 April 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: Those particular links might be inappropriate, but this word arouses a lot of controversy; that's why both the English and Japanese Wikipedias have articles on it.  Exploding Boy 03:28, 19 April 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: "Gaijin" gets over 2 million Google hits ... I think that alone indicates its worthiness as an article candidate. CES 03:48, 19 April 2006 (UTC)

text: I would say somewhat more NPOV external link would be an internet forum for English speaking gaijin (i.e. English speaking foreign resident in Japan). I don't know if such a forum exist but it would be useful to anyone who read this article. If someone want to find a thread discussing "gaijin rude or not" topic, that is up to him/her. Vapour
But these are internet forums for English-speaking gaijin, and they show that the kind of English-speaking gaijin who frequent them are people who express rather trite ideas in an uninteresting way. As I go through this stuff (I mean, before sleepiness overcomes me), I see no insight, let alone knowledge. I don't even see any interesting anecdotes. So the forum links merely provide evidence that a number of gaijin are grumpy about the term "gaijin". Perhaps they should come with warnings (analogous to , etc.): "". -- Hoary 23:19, 19 April 2006 (UTC)

text: In this edit, some IP reverts my removal of a link, and appears to term it "censorship" because "The discussion is valid". I don't know what "valid" means here. What I'd like to know is how this "discussion" whose link has just been reinserted is substantive. What light does it shed on the usage of this word gaijin? -- Hoary 06:32, 20 April 2006 (UTC)
thread_title: External links

message: Just a note to let y'all know, please stop the edit war. If it continues, the article will be protected on whatever version it was at. Discuss. --Golbez 06:52, 19 April 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: There's no edit war going on, as can be seen from the lengthy, lengthy discussion we're having in an effort to acheive consensus.  Exploding Boy 06:55, 19 April 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: And neither side is resorting to "edit" now. The discussion is heated but that is all. Vapour
And I like that, I like seeing discussion going on. But if there is still edit warring occurring even while discussion is going on, that doesn't mean the article won't get protected. --Golbez 19:09, 19 April 2006 (UTC)

text: Talk to User:Saintjust.  At present, I see no good reason for the article to be protected.  Exploding Boy 19:43, 19 April 2006 (UTC)
thread_title:  Edit war 

message: The article tells us: In Japanese, shortening of long words is common in colloquial usage. That's certainly true. However, I wonder if it's relevant. From gaikokujin to gaijin, we save just two moras. If it is shortening, I'd expect an analogous process with more or less analogous terms. We can discount both kankokujin and chūgokujin as relative neologisms; how about the long-established eikokujin and beikokujin? There's no eijin or beijin. I'm no phonologist, but I see no reason why the one should be shortened and the others not. Indeed, has any term "{morpheme}国人" other than 外国人 been shortened to "{morpheme}人"? -- Hoary 15:12, 21 April 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: Tangotango, you say: Personally, I'm not even sure whether it can be considered an abbreviation/shortened form/whatever. That's precisely my point. The last time I looked at the article, it stated that gaijin started out as a shortened form of gaikokujin, but gave no evidence for this. It did attempt to give some reasoning for it, but I find the reasoning very unconvincing because it would seem to predict formation and wide use of the non-existent (I think) words *英人 and *米人. Of course it's imaginable that word X is derived from the non-pejorative word Y and only later acquires negative connotations. But is this what happened with gaijin? Incidentally, I don't take ja-WP as a reference because the ja-WP article on 外人 is merely a typically mediocre WP article: it has no references and instead is merely a set of assertions that probably represent popular opinion but which I have no particular reason to believe. (Yes, much of WP has a disturbing resemblance to the Dictionnaire des Idées Reçues.) -- Hoary 22:39, 22 April 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: The above source says precisely that: "gaijin" is a contraction of "gaikokujin."  Exploding Boy 04:25, 23 April 2006 (UTC)

text: Sure, the Nanette Gottlieb source in the section above says that gaijin is a contraction, and I'm not questioning Gottlieb's credentials. However, I'd really like a source that provides the etymology of the word, rather than a passing reference to the fact that it's a contraction. Then again, I don't want this fact to become the most contested thing in this article. I'll do some more research next time I'm at the local library. Tangotango 04:36, 23 April 2006 (UTC)

text: I've photocopied the relevant pages of the (20-volume!) 日本国語大辞典 and I'll try to get around to digesting them some time in the next couple of days. -- Hoary 07:14, 24 April 2006 (UTC)
thread_title: shortening of long words

message: 日本国語大辞典 has an citation for gaikokujin that dates from Ansei 6, i.e. 1860; it therefore can't have been invented by the Meiji government. This humongous (20-vol) dictionary, which is hazily "on historical principles" -- when you try to use it, you realize just how good the OED is -- is over thirty years old; perhaps older examples have emerged since then. -- Hoary 00:06, 26 April 2006 (UTC)
thread_title:  ''Gaikokujin'' predates Meiji 

message: I'm not sure who added the unbalanced and POV tags to the article, but I think some references would help the article tremendously. And I love how many articles we have on single Japanese words, especially in comparison to other languages. Perhaps we should create articles for ausländer, étranger, ntangan, laowai, and every other word for "foreigner" we can think of. — BrianSmithson 17:50, 5 May 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: Well, there is an article for allochtoon in Dutch. And also compare Black (people), The Orient, etc. I think there's quite a bit of merit to having this article, seeing as the offensiveness of the term is a subject of dispute (particularly among, um, gaijin). - Sekicho 09:50, 6 May 2006 (UTC)

text: And perhaps we shouldn't, because an article is only worthwhile if it's done well; and despite all the time that has been spent on it, this article is not done at all well. -- Hoary 10:29, 6 May 2006 (UTC)
thread_title:  Sources 

message: One way in which this article seems to be a mess is the unexplained remark that the term gaijin "can be considered offensive". Clearly some people do consider it offensive: after all, they say it's offensive. But I wonder what they mean by this. People could of course say that they consider this or that term offensive but are unable to explain why (rather similarly to the way in which I can say that I find this or that piece of music enjoyable but am unable to explain why); one might then say that if they find it offensive (for an intangible reason or no reason at all) then for them it is offensive. But I'd hope to advance beyond this.
Shall we start to essay a model of ethnic slurs? (WP seems to lack this. Ethnic slur merely redirects to the dubiously valuable List of ethnic slurs.) I believe that "negro" is offensive because I'm told it's offensive. "Don't use it," I'm told, "because if you do people will be annoyed." It doesn't offend me in the slightest (perhaps in part because I'm used to reading fifty-year-old material), but I avoid it all the same. "Nigger" itself doesn't necessarily offend me (I can read it in Huckleberry Finn) but I rarely encounter it and when I do I'm on edge because the term is so associated with racism. Other terms (which I shan't bother to list here) occasionally used for the same people do offend me because they seem to reduce people to stereotypes that are inaccurate at best and wrong and demeaning at worst.
(As it happens, I'm pigmentally challenged. I don't remember being called a "honky", but the idea doesn't worry me: I just think "honky" is a funny term.)
So where does gaijin fit here? Nowhere that I can see. It seems close to "Jap" and "Brit". The former seems to be widely regarded as offensive, but again I don't know how it's offensive (and I can produce evidence of its affectionate use), while the latter seems almost affectionate.
What's the relationship between the alleged offensiveness of gaijin and the way that the word is allegedly spat out at, or in reference to, gaijin? Maybe it is spat out at them/us. (A gaijin myself, I avoid gatherings of drunks, racists, xenophobes and indeed schoolchildren, so I really don't know.) If it is, then I suspect that this is not because it's offensive but instead is the reason why it's perceived as offensive.
Over to youse. -- Hoary 10:29, 6 May 2006 (UTC)
thread_title: What does "offensiveness" mean, anyway?

message: Seems like I turned up too late for the discussions of this 'article'. I put it in inverted commas becuase the way it stands now it's still a total mess of unsourced 'facts' and of what appears to be just the opinions of various editors. Long sections appear as mere speculation on what this word might mean to some people, what it may mean to mean to others and how Japanese people may or may not feel about foreigners. After all the discussions below is it any nearer to reaching a conclusion most people can agree on, and more importantly, an article worthy of Wiki? ShizuokaSensei 06:17, 8 May 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: It's never too late to discuss and improve, please feel free to join in ... it would be more productive than just showing up and offering criticism without adding anything constructive. CES 12:19, 8 May 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: But that's what I do best! Seriously though, it appears that most aspects of this article have been discussions ad nauseam recently, so far be it from to go over old ground or drag up an old arguement which has been resolved. I was wondering how much progress has been made towards a new article after all the recent heated discussion? Is there a new version in the works? I'm not able to find it, but if there is, if someone could direct me to it it would be a better place for to start than inadvertedly dragging up some long since settled discussion point.ShizuokaSensei 13:04, 8 May 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: Welcome to the party.  Unfortunately there's no new-and-improved version, as of yet at least.  As you might be able to tell, there was an attempt to go section-by-section in the discussion above.  For some sections, this was more successful than others.  The discussion has come to a standstill for the past few weeks, however. CES 13:36, 8 May 2006 (UTC)
thread_title:  New version?