I for one would be very interested to find out the response to this. Ask your friends for the most sublime way to say you you liked them - something way better than “dai suki”. Work up all the nuance you can, not “-masu” this and “-masu” that,. Make sure you know the right counter. maybe it is “-kp” or “-hon” but since they are wagashi, maybe they have a special counter. Get it right, to see if you can disarm the guy.
And do report back 
Meguro in 1991 stands out the best but it happened a couple of times in 2.5 years. The Meguro was a smallish neighborhood sushi place on the main street (I forget what it’s called but that’s the street toward Naka-Meguro). There were Japanese waiting, and my buddy and I were definately shut out. We walked in the door. Two obvious foreigners and we both spoke basic Japanese. I don’t remember exactly what the staff said but they were clearly not politely and shoo’d us out the door. It was clear that we were not welcome (hell, who knows, maybe it was a private party or there was a Yakuza boss in there although I didn’t see any punch perms or missing digits). Normally, it it was a private party, the staff would be ultra polite on the surface and diplomatically usher you out, but this was different. Hard to describe.
My buddy and I were just fucking pissed off.
We went to another randomly chosen sushi bar nearby and had one of those magical nights that can happen in Japan. The staff was happy to see us, and after the sushi chef saw we actually liked sushi and knew at least the common names was giving us the old Japanese lesson over dinner. The chef was just gobsmacked that my buddy *loved *natto (he said it was like something he grew up eating in Tennessee). The regulars were welcoming and bought us both some beers. Both the sushi chef and some of the regulars comped us a few plates of pretty expensive sushi. I think we got out of there with a bill of maybe 3000 yen total (should have been ahelluva lot more).
Wierd. Went from this really nasty experience to one of those great nights.
[china hijack]
Even Sven - are you sure they used Gweiloh? It’s a Cantonese term that one hears commonly in Hong Kong. And it’s a nasty racist term that thankfully is being used less than it was 25 years ago.
Kidney - yes, Laowai can be made into a negative term but then again so can just about everything. As you pointed out, “lao” is usually an honorific. Laowai is definately the standard most polite way you can refer to someone if you don’t know the nationality. As you know, there are pleny of other terms that can be used which are not honorific.
The native Taiwanese kids in Taiwan use a word for pointy nose. It’s something like “adoga” “adogala”? Very common for little kids, probably not even elementary school age who don’t speak Mandarin yet, to use the term. They point and laugh in a fun little kid way rather than a mean way, but still after about 20 times a morning it does get a little old.
[/China hijack]
Actually, yeah, in Chongqing the other week. I get it now and then. It took me a while to figure out that people were not just appreciating how “gao” my very western looking nose is. It’s a long way from Shanghai out here.
You’re talking about a country that basically has very little concept of Western racism and forcing your own views of that on it mechanically. Am I supposed to feel sorry for you because somebody called you “big nose?” Like you’re the only one :rolleyes:. You chose to come here, though. Nobody forced you to. If you want to teach racial enlightenment to the Chinese you’re just going to get frustrated and end up going home, anyway. Don’t take it out on the locals who don’t know any better.
*Once again, I’m not looking for people to understand, respect or even appreciate my culture. But I do expect basic human-to-human respect, which I will persist in believing is universally achievable. *
Western moralizing from a crusader who thinks she knows what’s good for the locals better than they do for themselves. This smacks of the “white man’s burden” in civilizing the “nobel savages.” Just accept that you’re a “laowai” and always will be while you’re here. When you realize that you wont change anything and decide to just roll with the punches you’ll have a much better time.
And, may I ask, who are you, a foreigner, to lecture them on that? I agree that that is wrong, but it comes from the weight of Chinese history…something that neither you nor I are a part of. Until you have Chinese citizenship, permanent residence, or a family in China you’re just a guest. It’s typically considered rude for a guest to criticize his/her host’s home…so why, pray tell, do you feel the right to do so?
I’m sick of foreigners who find themselves the minority in China and then claim to be discriminated against at every corner.
I am, by no means, an expert in the Japanese language, but your use of the word “but” in the structure of your sentence is unfamiliar to me. I’d drop it and, as a guy, simply say 「すいません、英語は話せないだ」or 「すいません、英語は話せないだよ」to be a little more emphatic. …not that you meant this to be a Japanese language lesson. Sorry for the hijack.
I figured it was going to be a sushi restaurant. Some sushi places belong to neighborhoods, and are chilly to outsiders. Such sushi chefs are the masters of their tiny universe, and only serve friends. But I don’t see that a discriminatory, because they hate all outsiders, Japan from across the street equally as well as Americans and Chinese.
Strange, isn’t it? But with 128 million people here, saying the Japanese is impossible.
One thing for people to remember is that Japanese society can be very brutal to its own members. Mothers of kids in our daycare, which only takes kids until the year they turn three are concerned about leaving them in until the end before transferring to another facility because it “may be hard to make friends” in the new school since the kids already know each other.
OK, but we’re talking about 3-year-old kids. The point here, though, is that it can be hard to be a newcomer here, even for the natives.
Over our New Year’s holidays, my wife and I rented a fictional TV series we partially watched two years ago, dramatizing the struggles of temp staff workers vs. regular employees in corporate Japan, with the insults and pettiness of people in power.
It can be a great country. It can be an ugly country. Some things leave you in awe and others in disgust. As it said above, it’s strange. But really, is it any different in that respect than any other society?
According to the resident native Taiwanese it’s “adowa,” which she had taught me before as a non-discriminatory word. She and I use it here in Japan when we are talking about other foreigners in the vicinity as in “Hey check out that foreigner.” If you give me a heads up if you are in town, I’ll be more respectful.
When my wife told one of her Taiwanese friends living here in Japan that we were going out, she did so by chat, using Japanese so I could follow. My wife was trying to get the friend to guess who, saying it was someone she had met, etc. After a few really poor guesses, including an open gay guy, the friend figured it out and wrote ano gaijin? (That foreigner?)
Japanese use two words for foreigners, gaijin and gaikokujin. The former is more common, but some foreigners feel is discriminatory and the later is more formal and neutral.
Apparently Taiwanese here in Japan separate themselves from us Westerners by using gaijin for us, since we are atowa, and gaikokujin for themselves.
I think that laowai is a bit insulting. Maybe it’d be a different if I was in China, but I get -really- annoyed when I’m called laowai in Canada. This is my country! I was born here! I’m white! Do I not have a right to be mad if a chinese refers to me as a laowai? I’d much rather be called bairen. Laowai just strikes me as a bit xenophobic.
「Continuing the hijack.] No, he had it right, or at least in the right direction. The other person is talking in English, so a natural response is wakarimasen (don’t understand) and not hanasenai (don’t speak) in that the empashis in on not understanding what the speaker has said, and not that you can’t talk back.
We have friends here who are Western, but who don’t understand English but do speak Japanese, so it does happen.
Don’t waste too much of your time triple-checking your literal Japanese fluency. You’re probably just fine, if perhaps accented or a little too familiar at times. The first thing to understand in Japan is that the literal word seldom if ever represents the actual meaning. Therefore, “you can’t eat them” doesn’t mean the sweets are inedible or disagreeable. It means “I’m not wasting my time with you”.
The question then remains, why would the shopkeeper treat you this way? It could be several things:
Note that in both cases, the other party doesn’t need your money so much as they want to reinforce their existing biases. Of course, people all over the world get confused and reactionary when their preformed ideas are upended, but Lord love 'em, I’ve never met any people who are so heavily invested in so many specific preconceived notions as the Japanese.
You’re projecting and no you don’t have the right to be mad if you are refered to as a laowai. Laowai/waiguoren can also be translated as “alien” as compared to a Chinese. take your pick on the meaning “alien” “foreigner” or “non-Chinese.” Both terms are *neutral terms *(unless you subscribe to the view that the Chinese view all non Han as inferior beings). Both terms would be commonly translated as “foreigner” and NOT as an implied “dirty stinking scumbag racist raping imperialist foreigner.”
“Lao” is generally an honorific (laotouzi being an obvious exception). “Laowai” then would be something like Mr. Foreigner. Again, in case you missed it the first time, it’s a polite way to say “foreigner.”
Let’s put it a different way. What Chinese term would you prefer to be used for all foreigners and not just caucasians?
**Kidney **- I think Even Sven is venting a bit. She’s a Peace Corp teacher on her second assignment (IIRC the first was Cameroon), and hopes to be treated like a University Professor by her students. Unfortunately she’s in a Tier3 or Tier 4 city in Sichuan and many of the University students have a low maturity level and no experience interacting with foreigners. But hey, if it was a Tier 1 city and a good university, then they wouldn’t need Peace Corp volunteers would they?
**TokyoPlayer **- ya, it could be they just hated any non-regular but it sure felt racist at the time. It was right when what’s his face came out with the Japan That Can Say No book. And it happened a couple of times. I never had anything but a neutral to extremely warm reception in the rest of Japan. Especially in Tohoku, Shikoku and Hokkaido.
I don’t think anyone has advocated lecturing the individuals accused of racist behavior in person.
We have a right too call an asshole an asshole. It doesn’t matter what cultural experiences led them to be so.
In our experiences being shooed out of shops we do behave as guests. We move on. I don’t think anyone sits and insists they have the same right to be there as the natives.
If someone is treated differently because their nationality they are being discriminated against. I’ve had similar experiences throughout the world it isn’t one country. My experience is in Japan they are sometimes more blatant. A cabby won’t allow you in as opposed to in Italy where they would and might just charge double the rate. I kinda prefer the Japanese at least they are straight forward about it and I can find another cab.
But laowai isn’t used for all foreigners. Japanese aren’t laowai, and neither are black people. Why are blacks referred to racially, as heiren? Why do white people get the monopoly on laowai?
The issue I have with laowai is that it’s a racial term, but never referred to as such. I notice this especially because it’s jarring to be living in Canada, and hearing chinese people call white people here laowai.
Actually, Laowai and Waiguoren are used for *all *foreigners when it is known they are obviously foreigners but not what nationality. Then the Chinese tend to use specific country when talking about a person. Chinese are reasonably good at recognizing when someone that is Asian but not Chinese.
So, Japanese are laowai but generally called by the subset of Japanese. Asians are generally referred to as Huangzhongren (yellow type people) or Yazhouren (person from asia) instead of laowai. Heiren are definately laowai but can also be a subset known as Heiren.
Let me repeat again. Laowai/waiguoren are neutral and official terms. And you can’t provide an alternative, so I suggest you get over your language and cultural bias and accept that you are being referred to politely.
We have a right too call an asshole an asshole. It doesn’t matter what cultural experiences led them to be so.
Some immature dumbass teenager giggling at the “laowai” is not an asshole, he’s an immature dumbass teenager. A drunken yob yelling, “Get the fuck out of here, you dirty laowai!” is an asshole who needs to be put in his place. There’s an OBVIOUS difference.
Maybe I’m being too hard on Even Sven, but I’ve heard this “they called me ‘laowai,’ boo hoo” thing far too many times to have any sympathy for it anymore. I, too, was once guily of the same until someone (an American friend who had been in China 15 years) straightened me out. Now, as I said, I base my reaction to the term depending on who’s saying it, when, and how. Examples: I was standing on the bus waiting for some change once. The other passangers got in and the driver directed them to give their money to the “laowai.” I wasn’t offended, I said nothing, and collected my change. Another time some little 5-year-olds on the street shouted, “Hello! LAOWAI!!!” at me, I was annoyed and told them they shouldn’t be so rude (they were shocked into silence). Yet another time some asshole asked my wife why she was hanging out with the “laowai.” I was offended so he got a mouthful from me (with plenty of obscenities thrown in).
“Laowai” is not always a bad term. It just means you’re a foreigner. And you are. There are no two ways about it. Most foreigners in China don’t know how to speak Chinese…if you do you’ll get into discussions with the locals and you’ll find out their true feelings about foreigners which, more often than not, are tolerant and welcoming. If you only go by the few snippets you can understand, though, which may seem rude offhand but actually aren’t, you’re more likely to have a misunderstanding. I think a big reason why many foreigners don’t like to be called “laowai” is that they come from first-world countries where they were part of the dominant ethnic group and were never made to feel different. Then they come here and can’t cope with being in a minority.
Let me put it this way: would you rather be called “laowai” or “yangguizi”?
That’s a totally different scenario altogether. I would feel annoyed at that but chalk it up to “laowai” being the default word for non-Chinese in the Chinese mind. Even though non-Canadian Chinese are the “laowai” in Canada, you’re still “laowai” to them. That’s just cultural.
Well, as you and I both probably know, CG, even a university professor in China is still a 外教 and, thus, more of a novelty than a real teacher. Others might not like to admit it, but that’s the way it is. Others might not have realized it yet.
Oh, sure, the point is that I was joking Although, it is funny that everyone assumes I speak English, I could just as easily be from any non-English-speaking western European country if we’re judging by appearances (although, I do realize that the vast majority of western-looking foreign visitors to Japan will at least know English as a second language if not first).
Actually a funny story tangentially related to this. When I was visiting Germany a few years ago, I was hanging out in train/bus station waiting for my departure time and a group of Japanese tourists came up to me to ask directions about something, in German, which I know about 20 words of. They were absolutely floored that I responded in Japanese to them that I can’t speak German. I love it when I can mess with people like that, and we all had a good laugh about it (especially since I was generally as lost as they were!)
I like how you think. My co-workers seem to think that ko (個) would be the proper counter, but that’s boring. Other options include:
顆 or 果 - Small round things, jewels, hanko, fruits
臼 - a counter specifically for mochi (who knew such a thing existed!)
but using those alternate options would probably confuse a Japanese person just as much as myself.
Well, quite a bit, actually. A few semesters in college, several Japanese friends, and a study abroad program. However, there are still definitely subtle differences that I don’t always get, which make a big difference and that’s why I made this thread.
Well, judging by the reaction I get when I can read anything here, most Japanese people must think it’s simply amazing for a foreigner to decode anything in their language! For the record, I’m at the JLPT level 2 (but just barely made it to there… Level 1 remains a long-term goal that I’ll never probably reach since I have no plans of permanently residing in Japan)
Thanks for the sympathy. It’s no secret that I’ve realized that China and I were just not made for each other. But if I left, it would leave my students with no teacher at all. The other volunteer who came to this town hightailed it as soon as he could, and now his students sit in an empty classroom during his class period. When I swore in, I made a promise that I’d do my best to see it through, and I do feel an obligation to my students even though I’m not personally having the time of my life. “Toughest job you’ll ever love” and all that.
You’re white? What does this mean? Does this make you more Canadian than the non-whites that were also born here? Sorry, but this just smacks of the Chinese xenophobia that you’re complaining about.
I’m kind of trying to wrap my head around your situation: if your main teaching subject is Engish, and you’re not in the complete boonies, then there ought to be some options for the kids in terms of private schools and online learning? I mean, it’s not like you’re coming to a village full of barefoot half naked kids living in mud huts: they do have other options to learn English and gain exposure to Western culture, don’t they? So what do you feel is your unique contribution? Not snarky, genuinely curious.
Two corrections. According to the now fully awake resident Taiwanese, the spelling of “Adowa” is difficult since Taiwanese pronunciation is different. The “wa” is a nasial sound inbetween “wa” and “ga.” The second was I left off a smiley 
after “I’ll be more respectful” to indicate this was a joke.
It could very well be. I’ve never said there aren’t any racists here. It just doesn’t surprise me that it happened in a sushi place, one of the first restaurants which you would look for that to happen.