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Gaijin (外人, [ɡaid͡ʑiɴ]) ("outside person") is a Japanese word for foreigners and non-Japanese. The word is composed of two kanji: gai (外?, "outside") and jin (人?, "person"). Similarly composed words that refer to foreign things include gaikoku (外国?, "foreign country") and gaisha (外車?, "foreign car"). The word can refer to nationality, race, or ethnicity, concepts generally conflated in Japan.
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Some feel the word has come to have a negative or pejorative connotation, while other observers maintain it is neutral or even positive. Gaikokujin (外国人, "foreign-country person") is a more neutral and somewhat more formal term widely used in the Japanese government and in media.
Etymology and history
The word gaijin can be traced in writing to the 13th-century Heike Monogatari:
外人もなき所に兵具をとゝのへ Assembling arms where there are no gaijinHere, gaijin refers to outsiders and potential enemies. Another early reference is in Renri Hishō (c. 1349) by Nijō Yoshimoto, where it is used to refer to a Japanese person who is a stranger, not a friend. The Noh play, Kurama tengu has a scene where a servant objects to the appearance of a traveling monk:
源平両家の童形たちのおのおのござ候ふに、かやうの外人は然るべからず候 A gaijin doesn't belong here, where children from the Genji and Heike families are playing.Here, gaijin also means an outsider or unfamiliar person.
The word gaikokujin (外国人) is composed of gaikoku (foreign country) and jin (person). The Meiji government (1868–1912) introduced and popularized the term, which came to replace ijin, ikokujin and ihōjin. As the Empire of Japan extended to Korea and to Taiwan, the term naikokujin ("inside country people") came to refer to nationals of other imperial territories. While other terms fell out of use after World War II, gaikokujin remained the official term for non-Japanese people. Some hold that the modern gaijin is a contraction of gaikokujin.
Usage
While all forms of the word mean "foreigner" or "outsider", in practice gaikokujin and gaijin are commonly used to refer to racially non-Japanese groups, principally Caucasians. However the term is also sometimes applied to ethnic Japanese born and raised in other countries. Gaijin is also commonly used within Japanese events such as baseball (there is a limit to non-Japanese players in NPB) and professional wrestling to collectively refer to the visiting performers from the West who will frequently tour the country.
Japanese speakers commonly refer to non-Japanese people as gaijin even while they are overseas. Also, people of Japanese descent native to other countries (especially those countries with large Japanese communities) might also call non-descendants gaijin, as a counterpart to nikkei.
Historically, some usage of the word "gaijin" referred respectfully to the prestige and wealth of Caucasians or the power of western businesses. This interpretation of the term as positive or neutral in tone continues for some. However, though the term may be used without negative intent by many Japanese speakers, it is seen as derogatory by some and reflective of exclusionary attitudes.
"While the term itself has no derogatory meaning, it emphasizes the exclusiveness of Japanese attitude and has therefore picked up pejorative connotations that many Westerners resent." Mayumi Itoh (1995)
Now that gaijin has become somewhat politically incorrect, it is common to refer to non-Japanese as gaikokujin. Nanette Gottlieb, Professor of Japanese Studies at the School of Languages and Comparative Cultural Studies at the University of Queensland, suggests that the term has become controversial and is avoided now by most Japanese television broadcasters. The uncontroversial, if slightly formal gaikokujin, is commonly used instead.
Gaijin appears frequently in Western literature and pop culture. It forms the title of such novels as Marc Olden's Gaijin (New York: Arbor House, 1986), James Melville's Go gently, gaijin (New York : St. Martin's Press, 1986), James Kirkup's Gaijin on the Ginza (London: Chester Springs, 1991) and James Clavell's Gai-Jin (New York: Delacorte Press, 1993), as well as a song by Nick Lowe. It is the title of feature films such as Tizuka Yamazaki's Gaijin - Os Caminhos da Liberdade (1980) and Gaijin - Ama-me Como Sou (2005), as well as animation shorts such as Fumi Inoue's Gaijin (2003).