Pleasant Surprise: Night Note: Wise Beyond His Years

Posted by Kotaku
May 7, 2007

To: Crecente
From: Ashcraft
Subject: Kid's Say The Darndest Things

Common knowledge, but the word for foreigners in Japan is "gaikokujin." When it's said on the news or NHK, it's "gaikokujin" (literally: "outside country person"). Elsewhere, it pops up as "gaijin" ("outside person"). Some find the word offensive or even derogatory and are quite sensitive about it. Others don't really care. Guess I'm somewhere in between, and more often than not in the "don't really care" category. For every asshole here, there's a corresponding one elsewhere, so I don't buy that misunderstanding different kinds of people is unique to Japan. I've lived in Japan long enough that I know "gaijin" isn't always meant to dis, and that it's better to go by things like context or tone in deciding the speaker's intended meaning. There's no point in correcting people when they shorten it — You'll kill yourself trying.

During the weekend, we took a family drive. It was a nice day, so I rolled down the window and let the breeze blow through the cabin. We hit a stop light. At the corner, there was a teen, couldn't have been more than 16 and what appeared to be his girlfriend. My car pulled up to the intersection and stopped. The kid sees me and says to his girlfriend, "Foreigner." She laughed. Rude all around. The rough way he said it, and tone of his voice was closer to "Fucking foreigner," than just "foreigner." The light changed, and I drove off.

Thinking aloud, I said, "I wonder why some people have to act like that?"

Sitting in a babyseat in the back seat, my kid piped up: "That's just something you're going to have to endure."

This coming from a three year-old, who still wets the bed. Well said. It's hard being different, but something tells me that Mini Bash is gonna be alright.

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