The Japanese word Gaijin has a wide meaning and officially described as non Japanese.
However, as the word is so much used for a long time by many Japanese including me, it has come to mean mainly westerners. Americans, Europeans, Australians and other white people. Though the nationality does not say white or not.
We usually call Asians Chinese, Koreans, Vietnamese, and so on.
Basically I guess it is a neutral term. It depends on how you use in a context that the word is directed to mean.
But unfortunately, some non Japanese hear it uncomfortably and we sometimes talk on the subject that if there is any better word to say non Japanese in Japanese language.
I still do not find any good and polite word in our language.
No matter what you think it is, I like Gaijin who play tsugaru shamisen (^_^)
See you!
I gotta say Iâve never been offended by it, but then again Iâve never been called it in a negative way (I think).
Thatâs kool Kyoko because here at Bachido we like Japanese people who like Gaijin who play tsugaru shamisen! 
Good point Kyoko! 
I too have never been uncomfortable with the word Gaijin. I mean, I know that Gaikokujin is the polite version, but why use it when Gaijin is a shorter word? 
Masako (girlfriend/Bachido member) likes to hang out with foreigners, and still uses the word Gaijin. I think a word is only negative when there is a strong negative feeling put into the word.
Remember, only Gaijin can call each other Gaijin.
(jokeâŠjoke)
The Japanese have a seriously strong sense of community and ownership of their nationality. To me, it only makes sense that they specifically identify foreigners as Gaijin. They are very proud of being Japanese, and implying you are not one of them doesnât necessarily mean they think less of you or that youâre not a person they want to associate with. It just shows how much pride they have in the fact that they are Japanese.
Thank you for all the reply.
It makes me think about being Japanese from the other way round which I have never done this clearly before. And as far as I have been living here, exceptionally traveling abroad, I keep missing of such a chance.
Grant analyzed Japanese mentality quite reasonable way, and we Japanese may have taken such pride without realizing it. It is historically based on the isolated era and its culture and traditional way of thinking. I hope it will not be an obstacle to hinder the spread of tsugaru shamisen over the world.
Keep on spreading !
Sorry I forgot to answer Kyleâs question. Gaijin is a shortened form of formal word, Gaikokujin.But they sound very differently. We often worry casual saying of Gaijin might cause uncomfortable feeling.
Gaikokujin is polite to say but too long or too formal to use in our daily conversation.
Gaijin san, as it is actually used, may be a better expression.
Well, I guess Iâm going to be the first person on here to say I donât like the word. sigh Maybe it stems from already being a minority in my home country, but Iâve just never really been keen on having my âothernessâ be the way people define me. Itâs one thing to be proud of your community, but if youâve got a newcomer whoâs trying to be a active member of that community, constantly referring to their otherness can make that difficult.
To give a specific example, once while I was living in Kyoto, I went to the local Bic Camera to buy something. I had to ask one of the clerks a question, and he didnât know the answer so he called over his supervisor, saying, âThis gaijin-san has a question.â Now, why refer to me as âgaijin-san?â Why not just call me âcustomerâ like everybody else? Does my foreignness overrule my being in there for the same reason as every other customer? Does my foreignness mean that I get different treatment? Or maybe itâs a simple question of maybe if he hadnât said âthis gaijin-san,â his supervisor wouldnât have known who had the question. Anyway, thereâs something to be said for culturally sensitive customer service, yes, but the vague term âoutsiderâ doesnât speak to specific cultures. (And you know, to be honest, saying âThis gaikokujin-san has a questionâ wouldnât have been much better.) There are appropriate times to use the term âforeign,â (âforeign powers,â âforeign tourists,â âforeign investors,â etc.) but this wasnât one of them.
Thatâs the problem I have with âgaijin.â Itâs the overuse, the generalization of people, the lumping of diverse groups together. âGaijinâ can even be a type for romance, as if being from anywhere outside Japan instantly makes you more attractive or interesting. âGaijinâ isnât about who you are, itâs about how youâre not Japanese. The stereotypes flow from there.
Of course, as Kyoko says, most people donât mean anything bad when they use the word. However, like I said above, it can still be insensitive to use it because it lumps people together. Itâs perfectly all right to ask someone about where they come from and to want to learn about their culture. International exchange is a wonderful thing. However, keep in mind that non-Japanese people in Japan are well aware of their being non-Japanese, and they probably donât want all of their interactions to circulate around it.
Another example, also from Kyoto: Aside from shamisen, my other musical passion is Brazilian music. Samba, bossa nova, forrĂł; I love almost anything out of Brazil. There happened to be a Brazilian-themed cafe near where I lived, and they had weekly get togethers where people played music. I went one time, and it turned out that except for me, everybody was Japanese. The thing that unified us, though, was a love for Brazilian music. Not once did the subject of my foreignness come up, nor how my Japanese was good or whether I eat rice or bread. Instead, all we did was talk about music. It was wonderful, and incredibly refreshing. We got to know each other as people, rather than as Nihonjin from Nihon and Gaijin from Gaikoku.
In short, Iâm not trying to run from the fact that Iâm not Japanese; it just gets tiring that the default way people see me is âforeignerâ instead of âperson.â
I have always thought of it a lot like the âNâ-word
If I call myself or my buddies gaijin, then weâre good
If a Japanese person calls me gaijin, not so good
I have never really been bothered by the word âgaijinâ
Rather, when a Japanese person speaks English and calls me a âforeignerâ rather than âa person from another countryâ or âan English-speakerâ etc⊠then I am bothered.
Itâs one thing to be proud of your community, but if youâve got a newcomer whoâs trying to be a active member of that community, constantly referring to their otherness can make that difficult.
To elaborate on this point, itâs not just white people who face this kind of problem. ćšæ„éćœäșș (zainichi kankokujin, lit. "Koreans in Japan) are another example. Often these people belong to families who have been in Japan for generations and were raised in almost the exact same way as full-blood Japanese. Yet many choose to hide their Korean heritage, fearing it will bring prejudice and discrimination. Theyâre not even newcomers, and yet they have to deal with this.
Anyone remember the Maehara financial scandal a year or two ago? The cause of the whole controversy was that he had received a political donation from a âforeign national.â Turned out the culprit was a Zainichi Korean who had known Maehara since he was a kid and just wanted to help a friend. She didnât even know it was illegal. The man ended up resigning his cabinet post over this âfiasco.â Sheesh.
I feel everyone is right. You all need to take Jamieâs words into consideration. It all depends on how you feel about being âdifferentâ in a way that should not matter, but does. If I live in Sweden I wonât have a problem with the word Gaijin because if I was to be called Gaijin by a japanese person it wouldnât affect my life in any way.
When you come to a country with respect and try to integrate, even if youâre just there for a year or two, you want that to go smoothly. As Jamie says, just keep hearing a word that has such a meaning will make you think about that instead and thatâs not good.
The best for a person is to not care if he lives in Japan and is called Gaijin. Norm sees it as the N-word which probably is the way it is, but I donât think that using a word should be restricted to your national heritage. Thatâs racism.
You canât be insulted by an idiot, so Iâd say you canât be insulted by a person who wants to insult you by using a word. But as Jamie says, the point is that you start think about your differences when such a thing happens instead of focusing on the important things that you want to do.
But people, letâs go back to playing Shamisen
Kyoko: Ah, thatâs what I meant by Gaijin (ć€äșșïŒbeing a condensed version of ć€ćœäșșăWhether derogatory or not, history has shown that over time, words naturally get condensed so they are smoother and easier to say. I think thatâs the reason ć€äșș is said more, simply because itâs not so âharsh on the mouth.â Just like the word, âfridgeâ instead of ârefrigerator.â Thatâs my thought, at least. (in terms of using the shorter word)
Jamie: Thatâs actually why Iâm probably not Japanese. My dad really loved Japan (he lived there for five years, 40 years ago) and wanted to stay there forever, but he got so tired of always being looked at as an outsider, so he returned to America where he would at least fit in. Being that he moved to Santa Cruz, I canât complain.
In a way, I can âunderstandâ why the whole Korean donation thing was a fiasco for them. On that same hand, I believe itâs because that mindset is keeping Japan under suffocating bureaucracy and debt. ä»æčăçĄăă ăăăChanging this paradigm would be best for the future of Japan, but how can you turn around something so ingrained? When survival is on the line? Perhaps. Recently, Japanese shamisen craftsmen get together at a yearly convention to exchange their skills , as an effort to keep the practice alive. Something like that probably would not have been done a hundred years ago. So, similar to âopening upâ to keep shamisen alive, perhaps that will happen with government?
I am kind of sorry to make some of you recall uncomfortable happening in the past. But, as a result I come to know your real feeling and I learned a lot. That was something I was ignorant of here in Japan.
No, no, donât worry about it! Really, thanks for asking in the first place! Itâs conversations like these that help us move forward.
Oh, thank you so much for saying so, Jamie. I was a bit beginning to regret to have posted such a topic. But now come to think mutual understanding is very important.
Hello Sanga-san! I am from the USA, but I am currently living in Japan. I hope my perspective helps you a little bit.
I have only lived here about a year and a half, so I certainly donât have a lot of experience. However, what you need to realize (as you might already understand from this topic!) is that everyone has different perspectives on the word from their own personality experiences and opinions.
In general, I think the heart of the issue is that most people who come to Japan do not want to feel excluded or generalized. In the USA for example, because we are a melting pot of different people from around the world, we must take a moment to ask each person where they are from. From that point on, we refer to them by their nationality or better just by their name. I think for people to come to Japan, and be grouped together as âgaijinâ or âgaikokujinâ they feel itâs a little discriminating. I think most people coming to Japan would appreciate being asked what their nationality is, and being refered to by their nationality or even just their name.
Another thing to note. There is a lot of confusion between Japanese people and people not from Japan. People have good experiences, and bad experiences, and these have a lasting affect on our perspective of things and words. For example, someone new to Japan might be flattered to recieve a compliment on their chopstick skills. However, that Japanese person could ask another person, and that person is terribly insulted because they have been asked that question a many many times! Itâs understandably difficult for people in Japan to read the minds of âgaikokujinâ people, not knowing if they will be insulted or complimented.
All and all, my advice is to take it person-to-person. Perhaps start by asking where they are from, and how long they have been in Japan. It might give you an idea of what would be appropriate to say to them. Youâll never be perfect though, some people are just terribly sensitive! And some are easy-going, like me. I personally donât mind Gaijin or Gaikokujin as long as it isnât used in a way to stop me from living my normal life and doing what I want to do.
For the most part, most people donât want to take a moment to walk in the otherâs shoes and understand each otherâs feelings and intentions. If more people did that, and took the time to be understanding about both sides and perspectives, I think there would be a lot less misunderstandings and issues in Japan between native Japanese and âforeigners.â
Hope this helps!
Hello, Koyama san!
I am happy to read your sincere writing and it helped me a lot to understand what is happening between people coming from other countries and native Japanese.
Because of my lack of experience to be friends with English speakers here, my understanding has been shallow and may have been just on surface. No one never explained to me like you did, I mean, that in detail, or they just did not have a chance in a short stay.
My English speaking friends in Japan usually quickly went back to the own country or move to other area of Japan and missing contact.I am not complaining about it but is just the way it is and I miss my friends far away.
To me , this is partly because I have been unable to deepen my understanding on the issue.
The other general problem is language.English and Japanese are very different language as you understand , most of the uncomfortable situation is based on our inability to manage English
as a spoken language. In public places like stations, hospitals in big cities have written explanations on board recent years, but still not enough.And to make friends with English speakers, it is very hard through spoken English for an average native Japanese.
It may sound like kind of jump into a conclusion, but Japanese culture like anime, Shamisen and so on can play important roles to connect us people from all over the world. And I am lucky to find Bachido and get a chance to communicate here.
Hope to have a chance to play the shamisen together with you someday! I hope you are staying in Japan for a long time and make a lot of native Japanese friends.
Have a nice day!
Please donât worry, Senga-san! I can understand. Iâm happy I could help a little. I think itâs wonderful you are trying to learn more, and you are keeping an open mind! Many people donât do that and just live in their bubble. You are more then welcome to send me a private messege and we can chat about it more if you want to. Iâm not an expert at all, in fact I am really new to Japan! But like you, I think about these things a lot just trying to understand. I find trying to understand is a lot better then just getting upset about it.
I plan to stay here on a permenant basis, I really like it in Japan. There really isnât anything for me to go back to in the USA, and I have gained so much in Japan. Of course there are things that happen in Japan that I really donât agree with, but as long as I make good friends and have a good support group, iâm sure I will always be happy and comfortable here. It makes a huge difference making native friends who agree with you about those aweful things!
Like I said, feel free to send me a private messege anytime. If I can help at all iâll do my best. ^^"
On a lighter note, does anyone have any good Gaijin Smash stories to share?
Gaijin is the same as being called Gringo imo (which happens in southern california) typically happens if you cant match up to salsa or mexican cooking etc its lighthearted and not meant to offend ^^
just means foreigner
in my case since i make authentic mexican cooking its typically joked and iâm called a mexican aswell
On a lighter note, does anyone have any good Gaijin Smash stories to share?
Youâll have to enlighten me Kyle, whatâs a Gaijin Smash story?