This time, I won't write about youth and subculture in the classic sense, but about another cultural phenomenom which appears among (young) Japanese people. Even non-Japanese speakers know the word 'gaijin' (外人), short for gaikokujin (外国人) and it's very often used with a 'slightly' negative connotation.
As Japanese are so used to that word and the majority of non-Japanese speaking foreigners in Japan always uses that word to describe themselves, most people ignore the negative meaning of 'gaijin'. I personally, do dislike the word 'gaijin' and always use 'gaikokujin' instead. It is much more polite.
Another version of the 'g-word' is 'gaijin-san', with the word 'san' for mister/miss. Miss Gaijin isn't much more polite than gaijin alone, but many young Japanese don't get it.
Every time I go back to Japan, I will meet Japanese people who are talking behind my back about the 'gaijin' or 'gaijin-san' in front of them. What should you answer to them? 失礼ですよ。日本語を分かりますよ？(you're quite unfriendly, I can understand Japanese) or the rude way with 失礼でしょ？日本語分かるよ。(same meaning, just a step down on the ladder of polite words + grammar)
Okay, I always ignore them and I always will ignore them. They are not my friends, only strangers.
But what's when good Japanese friends are talking about you as 'gaijin'? In front of their little children...? Do they still recognize, that it is not really political correctness and will offend you? (In my case, I'm quite sensitive about words...) I want to give you 2 examples that 'impressed' me very much. All the dialogues are in Japanese, but I'm going to translate them.
All events happend in my homecountry, not in Japan:
First situation: I'm at the place of a Japanese friend of mine, she is about 10 years older than me and already has children (8 and 3 years). She told me about a strange thing, that happend at the playground. A strange couple came to the playground and played with a doll. They let the doll slide down the slide as if it was a real child. When I asked her, what kind of people they were (I didn't mean their race or nationality, I expected no answer but 'crazy people') She answered:'Gaijin'. So I thought: Chinese, African, American, Turkish, German and so on... and then my friend said 'Gaijin like you' - Austrians!
Eventhough she's is a Japanese living in Austria, and used to live about 5 years in Boston, US, she still considers herself as Japanese and the rest as 'gaijin'. I was quite shocked and couldn't say anything beside 'I see'.
Situation two: A good Japanese friend came to visit Vienna for the first time. I don't know why but the talked about the height of our friends. A Japanese friend of her is very tall and all my Austrian friends are very tall, we - my Japanese friend and I - are quite small. When I said 'All my friends here in Vienna are taller than me', she just responded 'How great, because they are 'gaijin', ne"
This time, I wasn't that shocked about hearing 'gaijin', because the situation was quite different (the first one has a negative connotation - crazy people, the second one a quite positive one - tall people)
Okay, that special friend went to Austria for the first time (but it was not her first time abroad..) and maybe because of the jet-lag and being used to see me only in Japan - she still thought she's in Japan? I don't know.
What do I want to say with that two short stories?
I wonder why so many Japanese seperate the world in two parts: Japanese and 'gaijin'. And eventhough Japanese go abroad they still consider themself as Japanese and the other people as 'gaijin'. That makes no sense to me.
Maybe the word 'gaijin' already lost the 'negative connotation'? I don't feel so. Eventhough the majority of Japan-fans will use that term to talk about themself, I won't use it.
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