Gaijin

The Japanese word gaijin (Japanese外人, literally " man from outside ") is a in contrast to the formal gaikokujin (外国人, " person from abroad " ) loaded with negative connotations term for non-Japanese, especially Westerners, which is now of the media is avoided and is also understood in everyday language on the wane. The word can be used in an ethnic sense, as well as to describe another nationality.

Historical Background

Historically, it is not at gaijin a contraction of gaikokujin. The oldest evidence for the assumed from the Chinese word gaijin can be found in texts from the Heian period. Until the early modern period is designated so that people who did not belong to the family, the local community who were foreign, were occasionally perceived as a threat.

According to the 1603 Portuguese Jesuits printed in Nagasaki " Vocabulario da Lingoa de IAPAM " closed " Guaijin " semantically also people from other countries, but they used since the 16th century on the basis of Sino -centric concepts for the experienced as alien to Europeans, a number of specific terms such as " southern barbarians " ( nambanjin ), " redheads " ( kōmōjin or Komo ), or " red barbarians " ( kōmōi or Koi). These were replaced ihōjin ( " person from another region " ) or ikokujin ( " person from another country " ) as part of the opening of the country towards the end of the Edo period through Ijin ( " others and with otherness "). Since the 60s of the 19th century, the form became gaikokujin. After 1872 it was used by the new Meiji government in official documents. At the same time, the term naikokujin ( " man of the Inland" ) was created to identify non-Japanese ethnic groups within the rapidly expanding territory (see: Taiwan under Japanese rule, Korea under Japanese rule ).

Most of these terms disappeared after the Second World War from the common parlance. Nambanjin and kōmōjin now serve as technical terms of historiography; the former has now even get in everyday life by the Japanese souvenirs and craft a romanticized connotation. With the increase of foreign residents in Japan has also increased among the locals gradually the awareness of the pejorative connotation of gaijin. Various incidents and processes accelerated this process. The name still appears in publications by Western authors - mostly to draw attention to the exposed position of Western foreigners in Japan.