gaijin

[damian 0]

I just got refered as a gaijin to a Japanese person by a western person.

 

It was one of the IT help desk dudes. My machine was broken, he takes a look and calls a Japanese collegue for advice. I assume the Japanese person asked him if I was using an english or Japanese operating system and that is when this guy said "he is a gaijin". I am a little perplexed.

 

Then I thought about it. When foriegn people speak in english they don't usually rattle off a long engish sentence and substitute ONLY ONE WORD with the japanese word. The only time I here this is when the word english word "foriegn" is substituted with "gaijin". By virtue of the fact that they use to use the g-word over foriegn tells me that they attach a different connotation to it.

 

The next time a non-japanese person calls me a gaijin, or even looks at me as though he is thinking "hey, look over there, a gaijin".

[sachiko 0]

It's strange I think. Did you taking offence?

[AsterG 0]

Lots of gaijin call each other gaijin dont they? I've heard it a lot.

[bobby12 0]

in my mind, gaijin means 'someone who is not from japan'

 

when i was in the uk, a foriegner was 'someone who is not from the uk'.

 

i think its the same thing. i dont have a problem using the word and i often refer to myself and others using it.

[zwelgen 0]

I think it depends how its used. Is it in "that stupid gaijin did this" or is it, "I went skiing with my gaijin mates", just using it as a definer word and could be replaced with american, australian, brittish, nzer whatever. I dont usually take offence.