Gaijin, Farang, Gweilo

Mandrake, on Oct 22 2005, 01:29 PM, said:

I never heard the word 'wapanese' in Japan - some people from the US might use the word Jap, but it refers also to Japanese living in the US.
I also never heard an insult considered like 'dirty barbarian' from a Japanese.

Japanese are using other insults and such words are mostly directed towards Korean or Chinese and other Asians, rarely towards Western foreigners.

The word GAIKOKU means ABROAD, and the word GAIKOKUJIN means a person from abroad.
There is also a word KOKUGAI = outside of Japan and KOKUNAI = inside of Japan and KAIGAI = abroad (kai = ocean)
It is very frequent to shorten words in both, spoken and written, by ommitting the second Chinese character, as the meaning is clear.

For example the official word is GAIMUSHO = Ministry of Foreign Affairs
Nobody would use the term GAIKOKUJIMUSHO....
Same is done with many other words, like TSUSHOSANGYOSHO will become TSUSANSHO = Trade Ministry....
tsusho=trade sangyo=industry

The word GAIJIN is not offensive, my Japanese family members will use that term, when talking to another person about me. I am calling Japanese living in the US and visiting us in Japan GAIJIN ....nothing wrong with that.

Quote

Yes, EXACTLY the same. WeiGouRen = Gaikokujin - same Chinese character.

Quote

In Japan some people do not know what is a map of this world....

But not all foreigners are 'Americans'...
People from Austria are 'osutoraria-jin'. (Australia) but sometimes mixed up with New Zealand, when I explain, Austria is next to Germany.

Much more difficult is it for people from East Europe, like Czech or Serbian....they are considered to come from Yugoslovakia

The relatively new term EU = Europe is however widely understood by ordinary people in Japan.
Take it easy, even not thinking about it. Usually there is no bad intention by Japanese, who are using all these funny terms.

MekhongKurt, on Oct 22 2005, 05:59 AM, said:

[color="#990000"]Didn't want to copy your entire quote as it was rather long but I thought your post was very informative and concise. It sounds like you will be a very good source of information about China here Kurt.[/color]

You can let it torment you to your grave or just let it go.

So, next time someone asks me who the manager is at work, I can tell them it's that darkie over there next to the paki, with impunity? Or next time I see the bus driver I can say to him 'Hi there gollywog' safe in the knowledge that they'll see the funny side.... right?

errrrrrr....wrong

unless you're looking for a good kicking?

Right, so why should he always be farang?

Because farang acquiesce.

britmaveric, on Oct 22 2005, 01:48 PM, said:

a bit off topic, but reminds me a funny story ...

some years back, arriving in Nepal, so many taxis, may be three times what being needed, and they were all showing their cards, "here sir, vely comfoltable" etc ..
and I saw one guy taking all the cards one by one with all the taxi drivers a bit shocked, and then quietly mix them and then give them back and slowly walk away where one smart driver was still waiting
"whel do you want to go sir?" with a typical nepali smile on his face

they must have had good fun to find their card again

one of the best example to how to give back when annoyed

francois

The Indonesians have it down. Wherever I went in Indonesia I heard, "Hallo mister!"
'Mister', so simple, so old fashioned, so polite, even politically correct.

Maybe we should adopt the word and call out "Yo farang" to fellow whities!

I know that "Farang" isn't necessarily used derogatorily, but my problem with the term is that many Thais use it to try to stereotype us all together.

I am just as culturally removed from Arabs, Italians, Swedish and Poles as I am from Thais.

This post has been edited by TizMe: 18 April 2007 - 08:41 PM

I can just imagine how a Thai man would feel if he were eating in a restaurant with an English woman and the waiter said excuse me madam is this dish for you or the slant eye? Will you and the slant eye be coming back again? Does this jacket belong to you or that slant eye you are with?
Farang is ignorant.
Now I'm off down the Thai pub to chat up that Ting Tong bird. I hear her eyes aren't the only thing that slant sideways.

This post has been edited by Il Postino: 19 April 2007 - 02:18 AM

The thing is Posty, it's really is said in all innocence and it's part of the charm of being in Thailand. There is usually no racist connotation intended. However, my objection is when people that know my name already insist on referring to me as the farang. Strangers in public I can forgive for their ignorance. However, while I agree with Stocky that farangs acquiesce, there is no denying that the equivalent in the West is as you describe above. Perhaps the Thai's are to be envied for the fact their society has not been paralysed by political correctness.

Mandrake, on 2007-04-18 19:23:03, said:

You got a good point, I am forever reading ludicrous stories about innocent comments being turned into big issues over here. It's happening in schools to young kids. The Royal mail is a good example of PC gone mad. You really have to think before you say anything, it just breeds resentment.
Groups of culturally different people are beginning to not associate which each other at all at work these days, it's very sad.

I've already written a fairly lengthy post on this topic, so I won't bore everyone again.

That said, there are two sides to this issue: no, words don't actually *hurt* anyone -- but at the same time, as TizMe noted, it's irksome, to say the least, to be referred to by one of these terms even when the local knows you.

I happen to be from the U.S., and I can practically assure anyone that virtually no one there, this side of the KKK, would even *dare* to use a racial term openly. Even if he or she wants to do so -- it's not worth the outcry that is sure to follow. (And rightly follow, I might add.) Though I've not lived in other Western countries, I imagine much the same is true in many of them.

I like the attitude my Thai neighbor's Mother took when I went with my neighbor upcountry to visit her family. Some family friends were there, and her Mom was introducing me around. Some of the people there commented how nice it was that her daughter has a farang friend. Her Mom piped up and said words to the effect of, "What's wrong with just saying my daughter has a nice friend? Does it really matter he isn't Thai?" [No, I don't speak Thai, but the daughter sure filled me in by the earful later.]

Sometimes it is relevant to mention nationality. For instance, one of my dearest friends here is a senior NCO with the Thai Immigration Police. When some foreigner I know has a question or [small] problem, I'll offer to put that person together with my NCO buddy -- and introduce the latter as "This is my Thai police buddy; maybe he can straighten you out." But the foreigner needs to know this is someone with the credentials, including nationality, to perhaps be of assistance. Otherwise, I don't mention it.

I've had to even say something to my Mother about this. She is NOT racist or xenophobic, but I got tired of her asking me, "How's your Thai girlfriend doing?" In the first place, the lady isn't my girlfriend, as my good friend and her fiancee will attest. So after somne years, when Mom asked, I counter-asked her, "Why, when you ask me about Pam (a Caucasian American with whom I grew up and remain close) don't you ask me something like 'How's your white girlfriend' or 'How's your American girlfriend'?" She, too, isn't my girlfriend -- as her husband of many years will affirm -- and neither her ethnic or national identity matter one jot. She's my friend, we've loved each other dearly for upwards of half a century, end of story. And something like that can be said about my lady friend here.

Someone wants to nail me for a shortcoming -- and I certainly have plenty -- have at it. But I want that nailing to be *specific,* not just because I happen to be Yank, or because I happen to be Caucasian, or because I happen to have been reared in the Episcopal Church, or because I'm from Texas -- well, etc. etc. etc.

In defense of Thailand, this hits me as far less an insulting issue here than is the case in China, Korea, and Japan. My ex-boss at a university in China had the government bar me from ever working there again because my ex-wife happened to graduate from that university (a ban still in effect, 20 years on). And otherwise, that boss was one of the very best bosses I've ever had, a guy who went a whole lot of extra miles to make life for me easier. (Actually, that university is advertising for teachers in my field now, and I'm toying with seeing if my long-since-retired-boss's ban will still carry the day if I push the issue.

I hope I'm not upsetting anyone with my frankness; I don't mean to do any such thing. But on occasion, this stuff cuts close to the bone, and hurts.

I am often referred to as a gwailo, even at times by my girlfriend, it doesn't bother me in the slightest.

In my experience it is rarely used as an insult.

Racism is about intent, not the actual word.

MekhongKurt, on 2007-04-19 19:18:22, said:

In Japan? By whom? Where? How?

Living here since over 30 years I cannot complain - sometimes, rarely, I met a crazy person...who made some remarks, but these are truly single cases. One in 5 years or so.

In this case, I just turn around and leave. No need even to quarrel it out.

In Japan most contacts are based on regular contacts...all people, I need for feeling well myself, know me since years, and I never have a problem...medical doctors, barbar shop, small shops around my working place and my home, meat restaurant for Western food, motorcycle shop, gas-station and so on....
Just entering, and they know, this is Yohan, the gaijin...

It is not bad to be a gaijin in an area where few foreigners are living. When I am walking around the park and yacht harbour on Sunday, people are greeting me kindly and I do not even know, who they are.

Hi, Yohan:

I certainly will bow to your vastly superior experience. I've never lived in Japan. My only experience, other than a 3-day trip, was with Japanese who lived in the U.S. [my Japanese-language teacher a long time ago] a couple of Japanese friends in Beijing, and some Japanese students and friends [sometimes both] here in Bangkok.

I didn't originally include Japanese in my comments years before -- until my Japanese students and friends, all open-minded, all well-experienced traveling abroad, told me I was stupid if I thought everyday Japanese who * didn't* have such experience were accepting of foreigners.

Unlike a lot of Americans, I certainly don't hate the Japanese over the war. That was a long time ago. Yes, I had relativers wounded, taken P.O.W., and killed in the Pacific Theater -- but that was then, and this is now. I wasn't even born until 1951, so I can hardly hold any kind of personal grudge.

It's pleasant to know you seem to have had a decades-long positive experience in what is, after all, an essentially homogenous society. I grew up on a tiny ranch just outside an all-Caucasion village in northeast Teaxas, so I do have some first-hand experience with such a society.

As I said in my last post, I surely don't mean to be insulting to anyone, and I genuinely appreciate your feedback -- it gives me food for thought. I get judged all the time here -- most harshly by fellow Americans, by the way -- so I try to be sensitive about fairness. I've lived in Asia 20 of the last 22 years, 13 of them right here in Bangkok, so I reckon there's *something* about the place I like. And, as I also said, I was married to a Beijinger, from whom I'm now divorced but against whom I harbor absolutely no grudge.

Although we don't know each other, I suspect we likely are kindred spirits. I find myself fairly regularly standing up in defense of our Thai hosts in particular, and our Asian hosts in general. There's enough trouble without creating yet more over color/race/nationality/religion.politics/what-what-what, isn't there.

Thanks for your response; it was a corrective that forced me to sit back and think.

Actually it is funny, these words do not bother me as much as being called "Yank". But, there's a reason. I am from North Carolina. When we call someone a "Yankee" it is 99% of the time an insult. However, as long as the "ee" is not added, I understand the term and its use - even as "septic" (hahaha).

Being called "Gringo" isprobably an insult 20% of the time and the terms you have listed I have yet to see as an insult.

(As an historical note, "gringo" has American roots, not Mexican. When "Black Jack" Pershing went after Pancho Villa in 1916, the US Army had just switched to green uniforms from the cavalry blue. The Mexicans in the border area could not pronouce "Green Coats" well and it was heard as "Gringos".)

MekhongKurt, on 2007-04-19 18:18:22, said:

lol...i just watched George Carlin and his bit about 'happen to be'....

"he just happens to be black"
"happens to be?"
"yes"
"well, was his mother black?"
"why, yes, she was"
"and his father?"
"yes, yes, he was, too"
"and did they f*ck?"
"why, yes, they did"
"well, where does the f*cking suprise come from then?"

sorry, but you just happen to be from the states.... "was your mother an american...?"
it's a joke, not an insult.... and i'm digressing...



i get used to being called laowai or waiguoren and getting stared at... if i don't like it i can leave...
but i'll admit sometimes it gets to me so i joke it off when it does...
if someone does the "ai yo, look! foreigner! shocked me!" i'll quickly retort "ai yo, look! chinese! shocked me!"
but i've seen stressed out foreigners here who can't take it and will stare
back hard with violent looks... really, if you're a white blonde in a sea of black heads
and it gets to you, you just need to get the hell out, it's not your bag...

my favorite is when the kids see me and start doing the tap tap tap on their buddies arms whispering laowai laowai
then i do the tap tap tap on my buddies arm and do the small chinese kid small chinese kid...
then it's 'foreign uncle'... which goes to show the same word can be used for respect as well...
except 'sha laowai', which pretty much means 'stupid foreigner'