Top Document: [sci.lang.japan] Frequently Asked Questions Previous Document: Q2.10 How can I see Japanese characters while surfing the Web? See reader questions & answers on this topic! - Help others by sharing your knowledge In and of itself "gaijin" can hardly be said to be a derogatory word. Most people and dictionaries will tell you it is just short for "gaikokujin", means `foreigner' or `alien' and can be contrasted with "houjin" (Japanese person). Any negative conno- tations that come with the word are the results of gross general- ization, lack of information, (hyper)sensitivity, and the like. Whether these negative associations are implied, depends on con- text. Kids playing in the street exclaiming "Ah, gaijin da!" are gen- erally just surprised at the sight of a foreigner. Real estate agents using "Gaijin wa dame!" are pigeon-holing all obvious foreigners into a group of potentially troublesome customers they'd rather not have. [ed.: I think most of the fuss around the word is caused by overly PC-sensitive types not comfortable with the idea of (sud- denly) being part of a rather conspicuous minority.] -- _/_/_/_/_/_/_/_/_/_/_/_/_/_/_/_/_/_/_/_/_/_/_/_/_/_/_/_/_/_/_/_/_/_/_/ Olaf Meeuwissen Ph.D. student, Shinshu University, Japan olaf@IMSL.shinshu-u.ac.jp Information Management Systems Laboratory User Contributions:Top Document: [sci.lang.japan] Frequently Asked Questions Previous Document: Q2.10 How can I see Japanese characters while surfing the Web? Single Page [ Usenet FAQs | Web FAQs | Documents | RFC Index ] Send corrections/additions to the FAQ Maintainer: olaf@IMSL.shinshu-u.ac.jp (Olaf Meeuwissen)
Last Update March 27 2014 @ 02:11 PM
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