9 ms·

Pro tip: if you want to review the correct pronunciation of the word "gai-jin," skip the tray and hand your cash directly to the clerk.

Someone1234 11y ago
This comment only makes sense if you know what "gaijin" means, it appears to mean roughly "foreigner" (or more literally "outside person").
- bryanlarsen 11y ago
  "alien" more correctly captures the connotation. "gaijin" is very much a derogatory word. "gaikokujin" (person from a different country) is more neutral.
  - derefr 11y ago
    "Outsider" is my favored translation. It's natural for the sentences where it gets used—"outsiders wouldn't understand [this custom]", etc.
  - eloisant 11y ago
    Gaikokujin is indeed the correct word for foreigner. Gaijin is slang. It's not necessarily used with a derogatory meaning. Also it's important to note that it's mostly used for white people, they'll never call a Chinese or Korean "gaijin" for example.
    - themodelplumber 11y ago
      I was called hakujin once, by a very angry man--"iranai, hakujin ga kirai" was the exact greeting. Granted, I was a Mormon missionary knocking on his door to talk spirituality, but out of the thousands of doors I knocked, that one still stands out as pretty spicy. In comparison, gaijin never seemed that bad.
      - littlepooghish 11y ago
        What makes people like you think it's a good idea to go and bother people in their home about your religious beliefs? Many people must find it frightening or just very annoying. Why subject people to that? It doesn't seem nice, let alone Christian.
        ohitsdom 11y ago
        > Why subject people to that? If Christians truly believe nonbelievers are going to hell, it's the only loving response. The magician (and atheist) Penn has a great story about this [0]. [0] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=owZc3Xq8obk https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=owZc3Xq8obk
        dragonwriter 11y ago
        It can only be viewed as a loving response if you think its effective, rather than alienating. If you believe unbelievers are going to hell, and believe (or observe) that that approach to evangelization is alienating, then its more than just rude...
        HCIdivision17 11y ago
        My two cents on this off-topic discussion... I've never been a part of the goin't'hell group, but in my fairly extensive experience as a young adult in an evangelical religious group, I certainly got the impression that the high touch personal approach was taken as more effective. Most people don't really like doing the door-to-door salesperson routine[0]. But they do it because it seems to work - assuming anyone actually answers the door (which is the real rarity). Or at least is effective enough; conversion rates are, shall we say, low. It doesn't need to be high, though, since the risk and reward is so high (failure means more lost, success is a life). [0] For introverts it can be extremely stressful - practice is the only thing that seems to make the terror go away for them. If the person at the door preachin' the word looks awkward and is stammering, be kind - they're more afraid of you than you are of them :) EDIT: slight grammar/clarification. EDIT EDIT: This is off-topic enough I'm going to just truncate part of my comment to gist: https://gist.github.com/anonymous/dead25324e4f74ccc183 https://gist.github.com/anonymous/dead25324e4f74ccc183
    - mentat 11y ago
      When I was in Japan in 2000 my host family made it very clear to me after talking to some Koreans that they were not Japanese.
    - mahranch 11y ago
      > Gaijin is slang. It's not necessarily used with a derogatory meaning. I think this is incredibly important here. People watch movies like Fast and the Furious and think it's always a bad, derogatory word when that isn't the case at all. As with many words in our own language, context is incredibly important. Take for example, the English word 'foreigner'. If I see a guy struggling to read a menu at a restaurant, I may say "Oh, he's probably a foreigner. I'm going to go see if he needs help". That's not a negative or derogatory usage. If I say "I wish those dirty foreigners would just go back to their home country", I've now turned the word into a derogatory one. This is exactly how the word gaijin is handled. It can be used in a derogatory manner, but it's not inherently derogatory. It can be used in a non-derogatory way. It's a shame so many people get their cultural knowledge from Hollywood movies.
    - nandemo 11y ago
      > they'll never call a Chinese or Korean "gaijin" for example. Not true, "gaijin" can be used to refer to any foreigner/non-Japanese. It's just that there are many Chinese and Koreans in Japan, and the countries are neighbors, so it's common to use the more specific words "Chinese" and "Korean" when the nationality is known. In the same sense that I might say "Eastern European" but a Hungarian would say "Romanian" or "Czech" etc. Also, though gaijin used to mean "outsider", and that usage is still listed in dictionaires, it's basically obsolete. Nobody (in Japan) calls a Japanese "gaijin".
  - sparkzilla 11y ago
    I lived in Japan for 20 years. The problem is that gaikokujin is too polite. Only dicks like Arudo Debito want to force everyone to use it, for reasons of political correctness, when in most cases the word gaijin is much more natural, and is not meant offensively. When Japanese people get to know you better they use your nationality as an identifier. Of course, the word gaijin is also used by gaijin to identify themselves.
    - fenomas 11y ago
      Hear hear. The worst part is I occasionally see Japanese people self-consciously using "gaikokujin" because they heard somewhere that foreigners will take offense if they say gaijin. It's manufactured and it's damned silly.
- fenomas 11y ago
  Yep, it's simply the informal word for "foreigner". In theory there's a sense of "outsider", and that meaning is listed in the dictionary, but in practice one never hears the word used in reference to a Japanese person who's an outsider in some other context.
FfejL 11y ago
Can verify, have done. The clerk looked horrified and shook her head vigorously while pointing at the coin tray.
- fenomas 11y ago
  I've been here 15+ years and never seen or heard of such a thing. Japanese people ignore the change tray all the time, or they don't, without issue.
  - sparkzilla 11y ago
    Agreed. Expect perhaps in banks.
unsignedint 11y ago
They may call you gaijin, but you get perks for being one. I look completely like Japanese (well, I was born there; but I lived in the States long enough, and I am gaijin by my definition, but it's not by theirs) -- so when I travel to Japan, I'd naturally hand money to clerk, either he/she would either give me this funny looks, or told politely (occasionally frustrated) to place that money on the tray. So sometimes I get the worst of the both status there...
- pyre 11y ago
  I knew of a couple that went to Japan where the gaijin (her white husband) spoke more Japanese than she did (100% Japanese Canadian). It apparently confused quite a number of people, because they all expect her to start speaking Japanese.
  - timr 11y ago
    I've experienced the opposite -- if I go to Europe, I look like everyone else, and the most likely outcome when they discover that I don't speak their language is irritation. Whenever I go to Asia, I'm treated like a novelty if I speak even a few words.
    - unsignedint 11y ago
      The way I feel it works is, if their perception is that you are not one of them you basically get extra credit for that, but if they don't see you that way, then you basically get your points deducted for each of "mistakes" you make. This really hurts me sometimes, because I know this and put so much effort try to fit in, but I basically get no praise for that, instead, I get nitpicked for noncompliances. In a case of some individuals like hotel clerks, that I actually spent some time talking, seeing multiple times a day, they totally understand my situation and didn't give me hard time. (And it was tiny hotel, that didn't really caters to foreigner, so it not that the they were used to it -- funny side story is a few year after that -- perhaps when their son took over the business, they've completely changed to cater to foreigners instead :-) )
jambor3 11y ago
I'd be very surprised if anyone actually said this in front of you, unless you are also being obnoxious in other ways.
fenomas 11y ago
This is crazy talk. To a rough approximation Japanese shop clerks are the politest organisms on earth. On top of which, these change trays are a simple nicety, not some kind of social obligation.

Someone1234 11y ago

This comment only makes sense if you know what "gaijin" means, it appears to mean roughly "foreigner" (or more literally "outside person").

bryanlarsen 11y ago
"alien" more correctly captures the connotation. "gaijin" is very much a derogatory word. "gaikokujin" (person from a different country) is more neutral.
- derefr 11y ago
  "Outsider" is my favored translation. It's natural for the sentences where it gets used—"outsiders wouldn't understand [this custom]", etc.
- eloisant 11y ago
  Gaikokujin is indeed the correct word for foreigner. Gaijin is slang. It's not necessarily used with a derogatory meaning. Also it's important to note that it's mostly used for white people, they'll never call a Chinese or Korean "gaijin" for example.
  - themodelplumber 11y ago
    I was called hakujin once, by a very angry man--"iranai, hakujin ga kirai" was the exact greeting. Granted, I was a Mormon missionary knocking on his door to talk spirituality, but out of the thousands of doors I knocked, that one still stands out as pretty spicy. In comparison, gaijin never seemed that bad.
    - littlepooghish 11y ago
      What makes people like you think it's a good idea to go and bother people in their home about your religious beliefs? Many people must find it frightening or just very annoying. Why subject people to that? It doesn't seem nice, let alone Christian.
      - ohitsdom 11y ago
        > Why subject people to that? If Christians truly believe nonbelievers are going to hell, it's the only loving response. The magician (and atheist) Penn has a great story about this [0]. [0] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=owZc3Xq8obk https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=owZc3Xq8obk
        dragonwriter 11y ago
        It can only be viewed as a loving response if you think its effective, rather than alienating. If you believe unbelievers are going to hell, and believe (or observe) that that approach to evangelization is alienating, then its more than just rude...
        HCIdivision17 11y ago
        My two cents on this off-topic discussion... I've never been a part of the goin't'hell group, but in my fairly extensive experience as a young adult in an evangelical religious group, I certainly got the impression that the high touch personal approach was taken as more effective. Most people don't really like doing the door-to-door salesperson routine[0]. But they do it because it seems to work - assuming anyone actually answers the door (which is the real rarity). Or at least is effective enough; conversion rates are, shall we say, low. It doesn't need to be high, though, since the risk and reward is so high (failure means more lost, success is a life). [0] For introverts it can be extremely stressful - practice is the only thing that seems to make the terror go away for them. If the person at the door preachin' the word looks awkward and is stammering, be kind - they're more afraid of you than you are of them :) EDIT: slight grammar/clarification. EDIT EDIT: This is off-topic enough I'm going to just truncate part of my comment to gist: https://gist.github.com/anonymous/dead25324e4f74ccc183 https://gist.github.com/anonymous/dead25324e4f74ccc183
  - mentat 11y ago
    When I was in Japan in 2000 my host family made it very clear to me after talking to some Koreans that they were not Japanese.
  - mahranch 11y ago
    > Gaijin is slang. It's not necessarily used with a derogatory meaning. I think this is incredibly important here. People watch movies like Fast and the Furious and think it's always a bad, derogatory word when that isn't the case at all. As with many words in our own language, context is incredibly important. Take for example, the English word 'foreigner'. If I see a guy struggling to read a menu at a restaurant, I may say "Oh, he's probably a foreigner. I'm going to go see if he needs help". That's not a negative or derogatory usage. If I say "I wish those dirty foreigners would just go back to their home country", I've now turned the word into a derogatory one. This is exactly how the word gaijin is handled. It can be used in a derogatory manner, but it's not inherently derogatory. It can be used in a non-derogatory way. It's a shame so many people get their cultural knowledge from Hollywood movies.
  - nandemo 11y ago
    > they'll never call a Chinese or Korean "gaijin" for example. Not true, "gaijin" can be used to refer to any foreigner/non-Japanese. It's just that there are many Chinese and Koreans in Japan, and the countries are neighbors, so it's common to use the more specific words "Chinese" and "Korean" when the nationality is known. In the same sense that I might say "Eastern European" but a Hungarian would say "Romanian" or "Czech" etc. Also, though gaijin used to mean "outsider", and that usage is still listed in dictionaires, it's basically obsolete. Nobody (in Japan) calls a Japanese "gaijin".
- sparkzilla 11y ago
  I lived in Japan for 20 years. The problem is that gaikokujin is too polite. Only dicks like Arudo Debito want to force everyone to use it, for reasons of political correctness, when in most cases the word gaijin is much more natural, and is not meant offensively. When Japanese people get to know you better they use your nationality as an identifier. Of course, the word gaijin is also used by gaijin to identify themselves.
  - fenomas 11y ago
    Hear hear. The worst part is I occasionally see Japanese people self-consciously using "gaikokujin" because they heard somewhere that foreigners will take offense if they say gaijin. It's manufactured and it's damned silly.
fenomas 11y ago
Yep, it's simply the informal word for "foreigner". In theory there's a sense of "outsider", and that meaning is listed in the dictionary, but in practice one never hears the word used in reference to a Japanese person who's an outsider in some other context.

FfejL 11y ago

Can verify, have done. The clerk looked horrified and shook her head vigorously while pointing at the coin tray.

fenomas 11y ago
I've been here 15+ years and never seen or heard of such a thing. Japanese people ignore the change tray all the time, or they don't, without issue.
- sparkzilla 11y ago
  Agreed. Expect perhaps in banks.

unsignedint 11y ago

They may call you gaijin, but you get perks for being one. I look completely like Japanese (well, I was born there; but I lived in the States long enough, and I am gaijin by my definition, but it's not by theirs) -- so when I travel to Japan, I'd naturally hand money to clerk, either he/she would either give me this funny looks, or told politely (occasionally frustrated) to place that money on the tray. So sometimes I get the worst of the both status there...

pyre 11y ago
I knew of a couple that went to Japan where the gaijin (her white husband) spoke more Japanese than she did (100% Japanese Canadian). It apparently confused quite a number of people, because they all expect her to start speaking Japanese.
- timr 11y ago
  I've experienced the opposite -- if I go to Europe, I look like everyone else, and the most likely outcome when they discover that I don't speak their language is irritation. Whenever I go to Asia, I'm treated like a novelty if I speak even a few words.
  - unsignedint 11y ago
    The way I feel it works is, if their perception is that you are not one of them you basically get extra credit for that, but if they don't see you that way, then you basically get your points deducted for each of "mistakes" you make. This really hurts me sometimes, because I know this and put so much effort try to fit in, but I basically get no praise for that, instead, I get nitpicked for noncompliances. In a case of some individuals like hotel clerks, that I actually spent some time talking, seeing multiple times a day, they totally understand my situation and didn't give me hard time. (And it was tiny hotel, that didn't really caters to foreigner, so it not that the they were used to it -- funny side story is a few year after that -- perhaps when their son took over the business, they've completely changed to cater to foreigners instead :-) )

jambor3 11y ago

I'd be very surprised if anyone actually said this in front of you, unless you are also being obnoxious in other ways.

fenomas 11y ago

This is crazy talk. To a rough approximation Japanese shop clerks are the politest organisms on earth. On top of which, these change trays are a simple nicety, not some kind of social obligation.