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Gaijin is a Japanese term for foreigners, often considered insulting or
demeaning.
In Japanese, gaijin is composed of two kanji, or Chinese characters, 外人.
Taken individually, these characters mean outside and person, respectively.
Another term, Gaikokujin (外国人 lit: outside country person) is considered to
be more politically correct, though notably no more accurate if applied to a
naturalized Japanese.
Many Japanese, particularly those outside of Tokyo or Osaka, are not
aware that gaijin is considered offensive. Recognizing that it is informal,
however, they will often say gaijin-san (lit: Mr. Outsider) in an attempt to
indicate more respect. In this context, gaijin may be considered analogous
to terms such as visible minority or person of colour used in Western
countries.
In other contexts, however, gaijin can be used to emphasize a foreigner's
non-belonging, and it is this usage in particular that has given the word
its racist stigma. Racism in Japan is not given much thought by Japanese
because the foreign population is dwarfed by the native population. In
contrast to other nations where racism exists, discrimination is often not
based on what you are but rather what you are not (not Japanese), which is
why gaijin is considered demeaning; it signifies that you are not one of us.
Even Japanese people who have spent significant time outside of Japan can
be seen as outsiders, although not always in a negative manner, and as such
their names are often not spelled in the typical Kanji but in Katakana, the
character set designated for words of foreign origin. A modern example of
this is a Japanese-American female artist Utada Hikaru (宇多田ヒカル) who has
spent most of her life in New York.
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