No, I don’t think most people think of it in the same sense that we do. I lived in Korea, not Japan, but they also have a word for foreigner—외국인. I never got t

No, I don’t think most people think of it in the same sense that we do. I lived in Korea, not Japan, but they also have a word for foreigner—외국인. I never got the sense that a Korean person found the term offensive to us and still used the word. Korea, like Japan, is just so highly homogenized as a society that it’s common to refer to foreigners that way. I think we find offense in the term, because as many people come to realize, foreigners generally get treated like a second class citizen. So then, being called a 외국인 is a reminder that we look different, and thus Koreans have premade assumptions (like that we don’t and won’t speak Korean). Which isn’t exactly wrong though, as many foreigners / expats / sexpats don’t bother to learn Korean. Again, I don’t think Koreans are intentionally using the term to be offensive to us. It’s just a descriptor.