The Word "Gaijin" and What Gaijin Think About It.

 

Below is a thread that nicely got going on Facebook all about a Japanese teacher that refuses to use the word "gaikokujin" to refer to "foreigners". Anyway, the background is all in there. I apologise for the personal abuse, that was me.

Baz:

Hey guys, thought I would get your opinion on something that came up recently. Feel free to ignore this message!

Anyway, recently Satomi has had a bit of a debate with one of the teachers at her school about the words 'gaijin' and 'gaikokojin'. The teacher refuses to use 'gaikokojin' when referring to foreigners but won't explain herself. Satomi thinks that using 'gaijin' is really rude for a teacher (especially since this woman is a Japanese teacher whose students are all foreigners). She wants to know your opinions about the use of these words. Do you have any? Please feel free to send me a direct message if you don't want to share with others.

My personal opinion is that if an 'educated' person consciously decides to use the term 'gaijin' then they are being disrespectful and that they know it.

Jules:

All Japanese know that the word Gaijin is the impolite word. She is definitely being disrespectful!

Alex:

you're spot on, educated or not. tell her she should be more thankful to the foreigners she teaches for giving her a job. A nice heaping helping of whoop-ass would do her some good.

http://www.debito.org/kumegaijinissue.html

Arthur:

I don't think that there is any impoliteness in the words themselves. It depends more on how they use it and on if you decide to take offense when someone uses the word. I call myself gaijin all the time and if someone else calls me a gaijin then that's ok. A problem may arise however, if the person refers to you as gaijin as a replacement for your name in a derogatory tone.

I'd be interested to here this teacher's reasoning though.

Arthur:

ps, David Aldwinckle is an ass-hat and should be ignored.

Bella:

She is holding the position as a professional teacher so whatever her preference is to refer to foreigners is should be set aside for the sake of professionalism in the classroom. Some Japanese people may occassionally use the word "Jap" to refer to themselves, but we certainly wouldn`t use that word in the classroom. Perhaps she needs a course on politcal politeness.

Dango:

I don't care if someone calls me gaijin unless they are being obviously malicious. It's hard to believe she is unaware that "gaijin" is recognized as a derogatory term and if she refuses to explain herself then I can only see that as wrong because if there is no malicious intent then why not say what you're on about.

Dango:

Who the fuck is David Perrywinckle?

Ray:

That woman should explain herself. As far as me and Mako can see her using gaijin is just lazy. It's another example of them modifying words, shortening things to the point where it no longer resembles the original. It should start with 外国の人 which would be the most formal, then going to 外国人 then 外人. She might not be trying to be rude on purpose but she at least needs to justify her position.

Arthur:

The interesting thing about this whole debate is that foreigners are trying to use their ideas of language to pigeon-hole a word that Japanese people use. It's like putting square pegs into round holes. In Japanese there isn't such a strong stigma attached to derogatory language. In Japanese language there are levels of politeness but no real words that BY THEMSELVES are derogatory. Just because a word is polite doesn't mean that there must be an equally unpolite word like we have in English. English speakers by historical nature are artists with profanity whereas in Japan the absence of language means way more.

The entire field of language pragmatics exists because of this very kind of problem. When you start translating language word for word you're just gonna end up with a mess of culturally actuated bruised egos.

TT:

Far more interesting than this apologist academic spiel is that no Japanese person has commented on this thread, and this brother of Clarke drinks at the totally gay tap room and watches dumb videos by %&$!!!.

Baz:

Just to give a little background about how this came up.

Satomi is doing a Japanese language teacher training program right now in X. .Her and several of her classmates are dating or are married to foreigners. The teacher in question used the term 'gaijin' so many times, and in such a way that those students in the class with some kind of connection to foreigners began to feel uncomfortable with the way the teacher was using the term. At the end of one of their second lesson one of the students complained to the administration that she felt the teacher was being disrespectful by speaking like that. The next class, the teacher didn't mention the word once... until the last few minutes when she told the students that their homework was to look up the words 'racist' and 'gaijin' in the dictionary. She hasn't explained why she prefers to use one phrase over the other... which Satomi thought was rather strange. That's why she wanted to know all of our opinions about the use of the word...

Arthur:

Thanks TT, I was wondering when the personal attacks for no apparent reason would start. Thumbs up!

btw, I don't drink at the taproom and %&$!!! is my student.

Bella:

Well, should be an interesting homework assignment for the students to find the Japanese translation for "racist" I imagine it would be just as hard as finding a Japanese word for "sexual harassment". In anycase I imagine things will all be solved once the students present the teacher with the definition of `racist` and the teacher can learn that it encompasses using non PC terms regardless of her intent or opinion of the use of the word. As Ray explained earlier the order in which foreigners should be refered to should apply especially considering the situation (professional teacher teaching in a classroom environment). However she decides to conduct herself outside of work his her personal choice. I can`t even imagine if teachers in Canada were aloud to use loose terms to refer to foreigners living in Canada. There would be a riot.

Dango:

I don't think anyone here was saying that the term Gaijin is derogatory. I myself said it was recognized as derogatory and that is where all the reactions are coming from. The teacher's behavior after the complaint is evidence that she is aware of the effect of this word.

Dango:

who the fuck is %&$!!! ?

Bella:

No, no, no Dango, your ruining it for everyone. Don`t you see this is a chance for all of us to argue and say all those things we`ve all wanted to say to each other, break up year long friendships, and then make facebook groups against each other. Man!!! Why do you always have to be so...so...so damn diplomatic?!! Yeah, there... I said it. And....sometimes you are just so...so unbiased. How the hell is anyone supposed to argue with you, huh?! Huh?! Let`s have it out!!

BK:

No Japanese have been invited to make a comment on this thread hence the lack of Japanese participation.

I think in this case the teacher is using the word a little too much and probably doesn't realize that what she is doing is being quite offensive. If she does realize and it is intended, then she is being xenophobic rather than racist. Xenophobia, like most dicrimination is a representation of fear or pissedoffness. On the flip-side she may know quite a lot of gaijin who say they are gaijin and may think she is being cool by using it a lot.. who knows. A lot of us here in Japan enjoy our gaijin status and the privileges and/or lack of responsibilities it brings, if we abuse this we deserve what we get.

I don't mind being referred to as gaijin and would refer to myself as a gaijin, as I think most of us would do. However, if the word is used too often and is sneered at me, I will take offence and confront the person. Unless they are right wing or Yakuza. The interesting thing is that in Japan, any non-japanese are referred to as gaijin which if anything is lazy and uncreative. Surely they could be a little more personal about it. In the UK we are a lot better at offending people from other countries and have a long list of specific monikers we use to refer to dodgy foreigners.

Perhaps the teacher has met some bad gaijin who have made her anti-gaijin. Unfortunately a lot of gaijin in Japan don't behave themselves particularly well and let the side down so I think the Japanese should create a new insult especially for those people. How about ウアンカーズ?

Dango:

Thanks for the kind words Bella. Let's start a facebook group.

Baz:

Hey BK!  Thanks for your comment.  I've actually sent the same message to quite a few of my Japanese friends in a different thread but haven't got any replies.

It seems what it all comes down to is intent (which unfortunately is a rather difficult thing to assess).  To me the interesting thing is that the way it was being used in the classroom was making some of the students uncomfortable and this speak volumes about her intent (at least perceived).

Maybe there should be terms that are more specific... I recently had a rather interesting 'debate' with someone over the use of the word Paki who stated that since he wasn't a racist it was ok for him to use the word.  Undeniably, the historic use of the word is derogatory.  Using the term Jap is quite similar I think.  Unfortunately, I have no idea about the use in the past regarding 'gaijin'.

Teaching in a Japanese Junior High School

I was recently subjected to the rather odd but lucrative world of teaching in a Japanese public junior high school. It was one of those random, odd gigs that come with the territory of being a foreigner in Japan. I formed part of a team of 6 people who had to visit 12 classes in 3 days. The main thrust of the lesson was learning English, but perhaps more importantly the idea was to deliver a bit of foreignness to the youngsters. Give them a taste of the multi-cultural in a land of mono-culture.

The Japanese in many ways provide an enviable education to its citizens: they have very high literacy rates and they excel in the teaching of math, but where they fall down is in instilling any sense of understanding of the world beyond Japan Inc. This was where we were supposed to come in.

So our merry band of six composed of citizens from England, France, Canada, Australia, Singapore and the Philippines were driven to a high school by the middle man who was obviously making a pretty penny for hooking the school up with a motley rag tag bunch of gaijin. Mr. Middleman reminded me of a Japanese del boy; an unreconstructed wheeler dealer in the shady world of language education. You want to learn something and he’ll fix you up with an unqualified teacher no problem.

Anyway he drove us to a school that had the same name as a supermarket and left us at the entrance. There we had to take our shoes off and put on green slippers that had been designed to fit the feet of dwarves. As I looked down I noticed all the kids and staff are wearing Nike and Adidas. Only we were subjected to the violent green mini slipper that freezes your extremities. We then shuffled along behind the ALT (Assistant Language Teacher) to an empty classroom. As we slid down the corridor we noticed all the windows were half open. It was January, the temperature was in single figures, there was no heating in evidence and the windows were open. Bless this feels character building already. Talking of buildings, school supermarket name was a stolidly rectangular concrete carbuncle with stained walls that looked like it should have been condemned 20 years ago. If only they had painted the walls some bright funky colors like in Latin America, it would have brightened the minds of a thousand youngsters who had slouched through the building and sweated in the playing fields as they received their programming for adulthood.

The ALT was from England; a rotund sparky chap who spoke in a loud voice and had some type of Beckhamized haircut. He wore a dark wrinkled pinstripe suit that could have been plundered from the trash. He seemed to snap in and out of an advanced case of lazy eye that meant for long seconds at a time both his eyes seemed to look just to the side of you, rather than  at you when he wanted to communicate. I can only presume that being an assistant language teacher in Japan had caused this rare affliction. Or maybe it was a cunning ploy to minimize his bulky presence and fit into the ethos of anonymity and mediocrity which is at the heart of every young boy and girls’ pedagogical experience.


Young Mr. Beckham Cut whizzed through an outline of the ordeal that awaited us and made polite getting to know you sideways chat as we waited for some students to come and escort us to our first class. They are big into escort services in Japan. After all the population can’t find the toilet in their own apartment without the aid of a navigation system nowadays. And sure enough a bunch of giggling teenage girls in long navy blue plaited skirts arrived at the door and gawped unashamedly at the handsome young French man in our midst and then, reluctantly, lead us to their classroom.

The classroom had a black board and the walls were decorated in propaganda, more of which later. The sexes were segregated into alternate rows of boys and girls. Under their chairs were skanky looking towels pegged to dry – I was later to discover that the bathrooms had no towels to dry your hands, hence the need for the cunning under-seating-drying apparatus. The windows were open and the view was a brown concrete courtyard ideal for a World War Two sniper festival. Our band of 6 lined up in front of the black board at the front of the class while the kids were called to attention and made to stand up and greet us in English in unison with a pathetic lack of enthusiasm. Their ball breaking young female teacher stood in front of her desk looking to unleash untold reserves of ferocity on any of her charges who acted up or displayed any of the early signs of free thinking. I was already fantasizing about her in leathers and a whip punishing my unworthy foreign arse.


After Mr. ALT went through a standard set of questions and answers– What’s the date? How are you? How’s the weather? (It was always cloudy – or was that just the view) etc. He then launched into a quick explanation of the exciting lesson they had in store for them. As a warmer he started off with a game appropriately called ‘crossfire’. I say it was a game but there seemed to be no objective to it or any winners. You stand up, you answer a question and you nominate which row will sit down with you, or if only you will sit down. You are born, you respond and you can retire alone or take others down with you.

Next up, the ALT went through an explanation of the following activity which was to complete a questionnaire about us foreigners. He bizarrely shunned such phrases as ‘taking notes’ and ‘fill out the questionnaire’ and resolutely stuck with the keynote idea of ‘memos’. Perhaps because it rhymed (sort of) with Nemo, that cute fish. They had to ask us questions about places to visit, the money used, things to buy, food and animals in our respective countries. Naturally, the kids understood very little of this English summary of what was wanted from them; but obviously being in the dark about what they had to do was nothing new or worrying for the bright young minds of the future. Dominatrix teacher gave a few curt sentences in Japanese prior to the off. It must have been something about feasting on their hearts if they stepped out of line because immediately they got into ‘lunch groups’ and assumed the necessary seriousness to begin.

And so we began rotating from one group to the next, a few minutes at each cluster of desks. The kids stumbled though some questions and filled out their memos. Those smart enough to notice that Mrs. No Shit had written some of the questions on the board breezed through the Q & A. While the information about fish and chips and London and tea was being doled out by me I showed them a few pictures of my country. They seemed to lap up the visuals, after all anything was better than that view out the window which, if it got you in its sway, would insidiously cast a dark shadow over your soul.

One group followed the other as I made the rounds. I noticed the older Canadian chap was merrily rabbiting on about everything under the sun to do with his back home. It goes without saying that the students couldn’t fathom his meaning but they were in awe of his pictures of colossal amounts of snow. The Filipino bird spoke some odd dialect that passes for English back home and held up a CD of folk songs for the kids to consider. She and the woman from Singapore were both married to Japanese men and so spoke really good Japanese and I suspect spent a good deal of the time clarifying in Japanese.

Blessedly each rotation was mercifully quick in coming and before I knew it the class was over. The students got back into rows and were made to stand up and mumble something about thanking us. We left and headed back to the empty classroom where we were first taken.


We had just enough time for a cup of bitter green tea before the whole process was repeated. We taught 4 classes, following exactly the same routine and being overseered by the dark eyes of Mrs. Whiplash. Such repetition invited me to zone out. At one point I came under the sway of the view, like Bilbo Baggins putting on the ring; only evil can come of it. So I forced my eyes and mind to focus anywhere but out the window. Instead as I went through the motions of memo filling with the students I set my wandering mind to studying the classrooms. This proved most entertaining. Above the black board in one class was the acronymic WBC which stood for “We Believe Class”. A masterpiece of ambiguity that George Orwell would have had something to say about. My favourite, however, by a long shot was the delightful re-working of Alexandre Dumas’ classic motto of brotherhood. Instead of “One for all and all for one”, the huge poster read “One for all and all for all.” That sums up Japan for me right there.

Days two and three followed pretty much the same schedule as our first day. The only difference was that on the third day we did a thing about families. The students told us how many centimeters tall their parents were and how many kilograms their parents weighed. It reminded me of being arrested back home in the UK. The only other variable was the Japanese teachers. On day two Mrs. Blackhawk was replaced by dude in tracksuit and on the final day we had a grey haired bloke with an implacable look of disinterest on his face that might be the great forbearance taught by the Buddha or it might have been a secret surrender to the god of the concrete view.