The Japanese word for foreigner is gaijin. A foreigner in Japanese is a gaijin Gaijin in one's own country

My home is my tatami

The first task that must be solved by a foreigner coming to any country is the selection of housing. In Japan, this business is put on a grand scale. There is a Fudo-san office on every block, which will find you almost any accommodation option you are interested in, provided that you have money, no pets and ... you are not a foreigner. If with money and animals (in Japan they are treated with great responsibility, and I have never met a single stray dog ​​during my entire stay there), it is more difficult with guests from abroad. To define foreigners in Japanese, there are several terms, the main of which is "gaijin".

Gaijin is "a person from outside". The term, in fact, is not offensive, but carries a connotation of the Japanese for foreigners - people who are ugly in appearance, internally unbalanced, inattentive, stupid, with their own "cockroaches in their heads", but generally safe, if there are few of them. In general, gaijin in Japanese is about the same as German in Russian, if you forget for a while about the presentation of the Germans as centuries-old enemies, that is, a person without a language is dumb. There is also the henna gaijin, the strange foreigner, and the baka gaijin, the stupid foreigner. These are all extremely important terms for adjusting to life in Japan, but for now let's get back to housing.

It can be difficult for a foreigner to take it off, because most Japanese generally treat foreigners with a hint of distrust, and for good reason. Japan is a country where 98% of the population is Japanese. Despite the fact that it is approximately equal in size to Germany, the Japanese consider their country small - the islands are 70% covered with mountains, and the relatively flat Hokkaido is sparsely populated - it is cold. It turns out that 126 million people are concentrated in a relatively small area, belonging to one people, the important features of which are discipline, groupism and careful observation of each other. If a Japanese is guilty of something, commits a crime, he will definitely be found someday - the general level of solving crimes in the country is over 75%, and murders - 98%. Keeping track of a foreigner, and even more so, predicting his actions is much more difficult. It seems that he is all in sight, he walks like a fire tower, but at the same time it is completely incomprehensible what is on his mind, and even he can escape abroad. And where is the guarantee that he will pay his rent on time, and will not pretend to be a dumb, deaf and blind baka gaijin? To understand how much gaijin is in the public eye in Japan, I will give an example from my own practice. Once, in good weather, I hung a futon on the balcony - a mattress, which is customary to dry here in such a way so that all kinds of biting organisms do not start in it from dampness. I hung it out and went to the store at the station, not far away. In the store, I got a phone call. My neighbor Vadik called:

- Where are you?

- In the store, why?

- It's raining, and your futon is drying on the balcony. My neighbor called me, she was worried that she would get wet.

- Thanks. I'm right here, I'll be right back, I'll take a picture. By the way, where are you? Something I haven't seen you for a long time.

- Yes, a week like in Hiroshima, on a business trip.

- In Hiroshima? So are you calling from there?

- Well, yes. Did you see the house opposite - across the garden? There is one Japanese grandmother. She is watching you through binoculars all the time. I saw that the futon was getting wet, and you left, and called your landlady. She found my wife, and my wife called me, and Vadik hung up.

But all this was later, but for now ... If you have little money, then renting an apartment can be quite problematic. Paying three monthly sums for the first month is a normal practice, a kind of insurance for the homeowner in case something happens to his apartment. And the monthly fee is quite a lot. I was lucky - the Japanese sensei found me an excellent apartment, consisting of a room of six Japanese-style tatami mats (that is, apart from these tatami and a table with chairs that my sensei gave me), as well as a kitchen with a two-burner stove, a bath and a toilet - all together with a total area of ​​six more tatami. One tatami has a standard size of 180 by 90 cm, that is, 12 tatami mats in my apartment is about 20 square meters in European terms. I lived near Oomori Station, not far from the main metropolitan Yamanote railway line, and this pleasure cost 9 mana per month (1 mana - 10,000 yen), which at that time was equal to about 850 dollars. Utility payments were included in the same amount, which, according to Japanese concepts, is absolutely great. Although, of course, everything is relative - the well-known translator Mitya Kovalenin, who moved into the same apartment after me, considered it not good enough and soon found another one. Maybe he was embarrassed by a small square bath in the ofuro style, to heat the water in which it was necessary to strike a spark in a gas apparatus by spinning a special handle, or a kitchen with a small barred window and a hallway about 50 square centimeters in size? I do not know, but I was satisfied with my apartment, and its price at least did not exceed the prices for similar apartments in our area.

The cost of an apartment directly depends on the type of house. There are two such types in Japan: apato and mansen (or manshen). Apato is an apartment (usually small, like mine, or small, like the one in which a friend of mine lived, with a total (and not residential!) area of ​​​​6 tatami) in a two- or three-story house. These houses are most often metal with plastic or wooden. They are not subject to major repairs, but they are not afraid of earthquakes - a light but strong frame can only be carried away by a tsunami. As the houses are completely worn out, they are dismantled, and new ones are assembled in their place. The older the house, the cheaper it is and the worse it is to live in. Everything is simple. There is no heating, the window may resemble a prison one, or maybe, like mine, it is the entire wall. If you do not pull the thick curtains, there is a strong feeling that you are a fish in a cramped aquarium.

The second category - mansen - high-rise buildings with apartments, as a rule, are much larger in area and, accordingly, more expensive. My friends, who lived in the center of Yokohama, a satellite city of Tokyo, rented a three-room apartment, comparable in size to an ordinary Moscow three-ruble note of the 1970s, for 25 mana per month - about $ 2,300.

House prices rose in Japan at the same time as the prices of everything else - in the last quarter of the last century. There were many reasons for this, the most exotic of them - buying up land by firms close to organized crime (the construction business in Japan is traditionally intertwined with the yakuza), failure to return "bad" bank loans, and much more, which requires special explanations for the average person. An interesting detail - in 1991, the highest price for land in the center of Tokyo was recorded - 400 thousand dollars (50 million yen) per square meter for office and 70 thousand dollars for residential development. Pedantic Japanese realtors, by the way, appreciated not only Tokyo. The whole of Japan was worth 2,300 trillion yen in the same 1991 - three times more than the entire United States of America combined and larger than Japan by 25 times.

After the beginning of the stagnation of the economy, prices froze, and by the beginning of the new century, they slowly crept down. Nevertheless, Japan is still a country so expensive that it is not always possible to clearly explain how much. It is especially difficult for Muscovites to understand this, who are convinced that there can be nothing more expensive than the Rublevo-Uspenskoye Highway in the world. If they nevertheless delve into the essence of the quoted numbers, then the Japanese are awarded the highest sign of the new Russian recognition: shaking their heads from top to bottom and the word “super” with an emphasis on “e”: we caught up with them! Really!

Well, God be with them, with the new Russians. It is important that the housing issue did not spoil the Japanese themselves. Fetishization of tatami on a massive scale, as we have, I did not notice there. Of course, everyone needs an apartment, or rather a house, but anyway, in youth it is almost impossible, and over time, you will probably be able to take a loan for fifty years - and everything will be fine. A stable country with a stable economy - what else is needed to meet old age?

) is an abbreviation of the Japanese word gaikokujin (jap. 外国人) meaning "foreigner".

Hieroglyphs that make up a word gaikokujin(外国人), meaning 外 "outside", 国 "country", and 人 "person". Thus, literally, the word means "a person from an outside country." In common parlance, the abbreviated form is used gaijin(外人), containing only the characters 外 "outside" and 人 "person"; thus the word means "man from outside". Therefore, many foreigners living in Japan consider the word gaijin offensive.

Origin and history

Gaikokujin or gaijin are relatively new words in Japanese. The Portuguese, the first Europeans to visit Japan, were called nambanjin(南蛮人 - "southern barbarians"), due to the fact that their ships came from the south, and the sailors were considered rude and discourteous. When 50 years later, at the beginning of the 17th century, English and Dutch adventurers reached Japan, they became known as komojin(紅毛人 - "red-headed people").

When the Tokugawa regime was forced to open Japan to contact with the outside world, westerners were mostly referred to as ijin(異人 - "another person"). This is a shortened form of ikokujin(異国人 - "a person from another country") or ihojin(異邦人 - "a person from another homeland"). These words were previously used for Japanese from another feudal area.

After the Meiji Restoration, the government introduced the word gaikokujin, which gradually replaced the words ijin, ikokujin and ihojin. When the Empire of Japan took over Korea and Taiwan, the word began to be used for the population of the imperial territories. naikokujin(内国人 - "inland man"). After the Second World War, this term lost its meaning, gaikokujin became the official term for non-Japanese, and all other terms fell out of use.

Modern use (in the 21st century)

In Japanese, shortened versions of long words are often used in common speech. However, when the shortened form becomes popular and the colloquial meaning becomes generally accepted, then the original form of the word may almost disappear from use.

The most formal term is Gaikoku no kata(外国の方 - approximately "a person from another country"), followed by gaikokujin, and then gaijin. There are some nuances in the choice of wording. Yes, the word gaijin included in the list of words not recommended for use on television and radio.

People of Japanese descent living or born in other countries are called nikkei jin, and children from mixed marriages - hafu(from English. half half).

Word gaijin can be used as an address. In this case, it is usually used with the nominal suffix -san.

Sometimes the Japanese call foreigners that, even when they themselves are abroad.

In cinema

"My Fiancé Is a Foreigner" is a Japanese film directed by Kazuaki Ue, which shows, using the example of a romantic story, various difficult situations that often arise when representatives of various cultures have close contact with the Japanese.

see also

Links

Alexander Kulanov Vasily Molodyakov about the "immigrant" law in Japan, the Russian diaspora and care for compatriots (Russian) (07/15/2009). Archived from the original on September 1, 2011. Retrieved December 4, 2010.

Notes

Wikimedia Foundation. 2010 .

• Bulaevo
• Kremenets (disambiguation)

See what "Gaijin" is in other dictionaries:

gaijin- noun, number of synonyms: 1 foreigner (23) ASIS synonym dictionary. V.N. Trishin. 2013 ... Synonym dictionary

baka gaijin- Japanese. American ... Universal additional practical explanatory dictionary by I. Mostitsky

Gaikokujin- This page is proposed to be renamed Gaijin. Explanation of reasons and discussion on the Wikipedia page: To rename / March 8, 2012. Perhaps its current name does not comply with the norms of the modern Russian language and / or the rules ... ... Wikipedia

Polivanov system

Hepburn system- Japanese writing Kanji ... Wikipedia

nerus- Non-Russian is a collective term for Russians, foreigners, foreigners, foreign (foreign) countries. In Dahl's dictionary (1866), it is interpreted as "foreigners, foreigners, foreign (foreign) strangers" (inaccessible link). In the explanatory word-building dictionary of Efremova ... ... Wikipedia

Farang- Farang Statue at Wat Pho, Bangkok Farang (Thai: ฝรั่ง, transcription: farang, Lao: phalang) is a word used by Thais to refer to Europeans. The word is ... Wikipedia

Clavell, James- James Clavell James Clavell Birth name: Charles Edmund Dumaresque Clavell Date of birth: October 10, 1924 (1924 10 10) Place of birth: Sydney, Australia ... Wikipedia

) is an abbreviation of the Japanese word gaikokujin (jap. 外国人) meaning "foreigner".

Hieroglyphs that make up a word gaikokujin(外国人), meaning 外 "outside", 国 "country", and 人 "person". Thus, literally, the word means "a person from an outside country." In common parlance, the abbreviated form is used gaijin(外人), containing only the characters 外 "outside" and 人 "person"; thus the word means "man from outside". Therefore, many foreigners living in Japan consider the word gaijin offensive.

Origin and history

Gaikokujin or gaijin are relatively new words in Japanese. The Portuguese, the first Europeans to visit Japan, were called nambanjin(南蛮人 - "southern barbarians"), due to the fact that their ships came from the south, and the sailors were considered rude and discourteous. When 50 years later, at the beginning of the 17th century, English and Dutch adventurers reached Japan, they became known as komojin(紅毛人 - "red-headed people").

When the Tokugawa regime was forced to open Japan to contact with the outside world, westerners were mostly referred to as ijin(異人 - "another person"). This is a shortened form of ikokujin(異国人 - "a person from another country") or ihojin(異邦人 - "a person from another homeland"). These words were previously used for Japanese from another feudal area.

After the Meiji Restoration, the government introduced the word gaikokujin, which gradually replaced the words ijin, ikokujin and ihojin. When the Empire of Japan took over Korea and Taiwan, the word began to be used for the population of the imperial territories. naikokujin(内国人 - "inland man"). After the Second World War, this term lost its meaning, gaikokujin became the official term for non-Japanese, and all other terms fell out of use.

Modern use (in the 21st century)

In Japanese, shortened versions of long words are often used in common speech. However, when the shortened form becomes popular and the colloquial meaning becomes generally accepted, then the original form of the word may almost disappear from use.

The most formal term is Gaikoku no kata(外国の方 - approximately "a person from another country"), followed by gaikokujin, and then gaijin. There are some nuances in the choice of wording. Yes, the word gaijin included in the list of words not recommended for use on television and radio.

People of Japanese descent living or born in other countries are called nikkei jin, and children from mixed marriages - hafu(from English. half half).

Word gaijin can be used as an address. In this case, it is usually used with the nominal suffix -san.

Sometimes the Japanese call foreigners that, even when they themselves are abroad.

In cinema

"My Fiancé Is a Foreigner" is a Japanese film directed by Kazuaki Ue, which shows, using the example of a romantic story, various difficult situations that often arise when representatives of various cultures have close contact with the Japanese.

see also

Links

Alexander Kulanov Vasily Molodyakov about the "immigrant" law in Japan, the Russian diaspora and care for compatriots (Russian) (07/15/2009). Archived from the original on September 1, 2011. Retrieved December 4, 2010.

Notes

Wikimedia Foundation. 2010 .

See what "Gaijin" is in other dictionaries:

Exist., number of synonyms: 1 foreigner (23) ASIS synonym dictionary. V.N. Trishin. 2013 ... Synonym dictionary

baka gaijin- Japanese. American ... Universal additional practical explanatory dictionary by I. Mostitsky

This page is proposed to be renamed Gaijin. Explanation of reasons and discussion on the Wikipedia page: To rename / March 8, 2012. Perhaps its current name does not comply with the norms of the modern Russian language and / or the rules ... ... Wikipedia

Japanese writing Kanji ... Wikipedia

Non-Russian is a collective term for Russians, foreigners, foreigners, foreign (foreign) strangers. In Dahl's dictionary (1866), it is interpreted as "foreigners, foreigners, foreign (foreign) strangers" (inaccessible link). In the explanatory word-building dictionary of Efremova ... ... Wikipedia

Farang statue at Wat Pho, Bangkok Farang (Thai: ฝรั่ง, transcription: farang, Lao: phalang) is a word used by Thais to refer to Europeans. The word is ... Wikipedia

James Clavell James Clavell Birth name: Charles Edmund Dumaresque Clavell Date of birth: October 10, 1924 (1924 10 10) Place of birth: Sydney, Australia ... Wikipedia

Gaijin. For most foreigners and Japanese people I know, it's just a word. It means a foreigner, and as non-Japanese living in Japan, we take it with humor: gaijins are us.

But for some expats, it's not just a word. This is a caustic definition with unkind deep-seated overtones.

In an attempt to understand its meaning, I decided to consult linguists and Japanese language experts. The observations of one professor deeply interested me.

Kevin M Doak is Nippon Foundation Endowed Chair in Japanese Studies Department of East Asian Languages ​​and Cultures at Georgetown University ). He is the author of such works as "Xavier's Legacy: Catholics in Japan's Contemporary Culture" ( Note. per. Francois Xavier (1506-52), Christian missionary, Jesuit, preached in Asia - in Goa, on the Malay Peninsula, the Moluccas and Ceylon, in 1549-52 in Japan) and A History of Nationalism in Modern Japan. He has translated numerous books, written op-eds for Sankei Shimbun, Sekai Nippon, and was even quoted by former Prime Minister Abe in his book Utsukushii kuni E (2006).

As Professor Doak explains, "gaijin" is a shortened form of "gaikokujin" ("gaikokujin"), a person from another country. Some foreigners living in Japan believe that the translation should be literally: "non-human" (dropping the word "kuni" - country from the middle), but it is unlikely that most Japanese understand it that way. For them, it means "foreigner" or "non-Japanese." It certainly does not carry racist connotations: a gaijin can be a person of any race, including Japanese-Americans or Japanese-Brazilians, many of whom live in Japan.

“However, during and after the American occupation, the term was commonly used to refer to the many non-Asians, largely whites, who came to Japan. Since these people were markedly different from the majority of the Japanese population, the word "gaijin" was used to say something like "Look, it's someone different from us!". Sucking is not uncommon for Japanese schoolchildren pointing their fingers at foreigners and shouting: “Gaijin yes!” (“gaijin da!”). These children are not hostile to "gaijins" but fascinated by them. They often run up to foreigners, try to talk to them or giggle and run away in embarrassment. I do not think that in these cases there is a reason for resentment.

During the early post-war period, the term often took on an informal meaning to refer to a white person, especially an American. Thus, some invest in this word both national and racist overtones. But the rest simply mean foreigners, regardless of race or nationality. Some Japanese who don't like foreigners may invest a judgmental tone; others, more politically correct, will insist on using the cumbersome and more formal expression "gaikokujin". But there are also words with a much more negative meaning, which the Japanese can use to refer to foreigners: "banjin" ("banjin"), "eibei kichiku" ("eibei kichiku"), "sankokujin" ("sankokujin") and so on, fortunately , quite rarely used. And of course there are racist words in Japanese besides "gaijin".

The professor expressed his personal opinion: “I think that foreigners living in Japan who are offended by any use of the word “gaijin” belong to a generally recognized phenomenon among foreigners (especially whites) who want to become Japanese in absolutely everything (culturally, biologically, socially) - compare with Loti Pierre in the novel "Lady Chrysanthemum", Blackthorne in Clavell's novel "Shogun" or the James Bond film in "You Only Live Twice". For these Japanophiles, any hint that they are failing to become Japanese is taken as a personal insult. I think most of the resentment against the word 'gaijin' is due to these concerns they bring to the situation."

Indeed, as the professor described his first visit to Japan, during my first stay in Kawagoe, some schoolchildren noticed me and pointed their fingers at me in amazement: “Gaijin! Gaijin!" In fact, years later, the lack of attention in Japan is more surprising than the occasions when I am noticed. Even I notice foreigners on trains and watch them out of the corner of my eye. I seem to notice everyone. I even eavesdrop on them in restaurants and cafes, and I suspect the Japanese are doing the same to me. What language do they speak? Where are they from? Why are they here?

The kids who noticed me on my first day in Japan evoked the middle-class scenic area where I grew up. If a black or Spaniard was seen on the street, we knew that he either worked for someone or was not local. We watched them with curiosity through the curtains. Such a visit could become the topic of the day even among adults, passed on by telephone and discussed in playgrounds and at meals.

I also recalled my experience as a jazz musician when I worked in the "black" neighborhoods. Walking down the street, I wondered if people were looking at me and they didn't understand what I was doing in their area. I asked myself if this attention was real or just imagined (the love I enjoyed from the listeners I played was indescribable). But at the same time, I thought about the primary difference between Philadelphia and Japan: in America, the neighborhoods where you belong or don't are a few blocks apart, sometimes separated by highways or railroads. Japan is separated by a huge ocean, so my stay here is a big event, although in recent years there have been more and more people like me (using statistics, roughly 1.5%, about three-quarters of which are Asians).

I also thought about my privileged status as a foreigner in Japan. It has happened, though not every day, that complete strangers have paid my bill at an izakaya bar, sometimes simply for trying to speak Japanese. A few years ago, a tipsy Japanese man even took me to his house around midnight and introduced me to his wife... and later, after sobering up, to his college-age daughter (assuming I would teach her Japanese). By the way, some Japanese parents were so friendly to me that I played with their children (imagine a Japanese who is so disposed to another unknown Japanese to entrust a child, or an American who easily hands a child to a random foreigner!). The Japanese paid quite a lot of money to study English with me, without even asking for recommendations and respectfully calling me "Sensei".

The tales of "foreigner privilege" that I have enjoyed as a result of superficial but positive stereotypes are too numerous to list. Sometimes it caused irritation. I want to be accepted for who I am, not for how I look. By the way, when my ethnicity is revealed, I am even more actively praised for the good deeds of “my people”. This behavior would look impolite in the West, but in Japan it is a sincere compliment.

Despite my privileged status, to say that I never felt prejudiced would be a lie. Police checks, for example, when just because you simply do not look Japanese, you are taken aside and questioned. At the beginning of the conversation - an unnerving greeting, then: where are you coming from? where are you going? Mandatory confusing interrogation. Finally: where are you from? (the same question seems to be heard daily from everyone, especially taxi drivers). America, I say. “アメリカ人…” the cop usually says looking at my ID card and politely handing it back. You can go. American.

These numerous incidents brought back memories of my high school days in Philadelphia, when the mostly white cops stopped or even rounded up black people "on suspicion." Stories of police brutality that I had heard about, especially in the previous generation, came to mind. I reminisced about the late 80s - early 90s, Rodney King and the Los Angeles Riot ( Note. per. riots that took place in Los Angeles from April 29 to May 4, 1992, when a jury acquitted four white police officers who beat African-American Rodney King for stubbornly resisting arrest for speeding), a radio condemnation of 911 and the police. I thought about the anger, the resentment, the resentment that pushed black people onto the New Jersey Turnpike, and how lucky I am to have been born white. I did not forget that all these memories belonged to another time and another country ... perhaps this is something like an inflicted cultural trauma.

Because of this, almost not a day goes by without thinking: “This is Japan, and I am a gaijin” and asking: “What does this mean?”. I thought about it when the Japanese addressed me in absolutely unclassifiable working-class jargon, not quite realizing that I was a foreigner who did not understand what they were saying at all. Or when I spoke to the Japanese in their language, and they answered me in English or said: “Sorry, I don’t speak English.” But I speak Japanese!