I hear and sometimes agree with what you’re saying. Except, gaijin is pretty much a racially neutral term and much more akin to “alien” (as in the INS context rather than ET).
When White westerners are treated differently, generally this is in some kind of advantageous way rather than disadvantageous. (There are exceptions of course, especially in renting and some sushi bars. I certainly was about ready to blow when renting for the first time in Tokyo and getting shunned.)
So rather different than “gweilo.”
Ah yes, if I was going to find or create a derogatory name for a group of people who are universally identifiable because of their turbans I too would resort to calling them… what they call themselves?! I guess bigots aren’t too bright. 
Interesting comments about the use of “Jap” for objects, but not people in some other countries. In NZ too it wouldn’t be at all odd to hear someone refer to their car as a “Jap-import” but it would be very odd to hear them refer to a Japanese person by that abbreviation, and I’d expect most people would look askance at them if they did. (And as for “Nip”, I don’t think I’ve seen that outside the pages of Commando war comics).
Reminds me of the few Westerners who are offended by farang, the Thai equivalentof gaijin. I can’t say much about the latter, but farang really is a non-offensive term, but some idjit Westerners start carrying on like it means "white nigger, which it does NOT.
I don’t think gaijin is similar to alien so I’m careful about ever saying how much “more akin” it is to “alien” (I note with thanks that you don’t say its the same thing). A dictionary definition might give “alien” or “foreigner” as appropriate translations but that is a false equivalence. In practice they have wildly different scopes of reference and usage.
I also disagree with the idea that “gaijin” is racially neutral. It’s not neutral but it’s a reversal of the typical western-language racial term by virtue of being introverted not extroverted. It’s not saying “you are one of them” but “you are not one of us”. So it has a racial component. Don’t forget that hotel staff are told to obtain passport ID from “gaikokujin” when they check in. They would never (knowingly) ask a Japanese person for the same ID. So how then do they determine who is a gaikokujin and who is not? Hint - they can’t with any reliable accuracy, yet they attempt to do it with clues such as language ability and looks. That’s all they have to go on. In other parts of the world it’s called racial profiling.
I also disagree that when white westerners are treated differently that its mainly positive. I think that’s something that short-term stayers pick up on, but it doesn’t hold out when one tries to live a normal (by Japanese standards) life. If you become a long term resident you are no longer considered a tourist but a parasite on the economy. I guess that is a discussion for somewhere else though.
Cheers for your thoughts China Guy.
Don’t lump me in with those idiots, please. I don’t view “gaijin” that way at all.
correct. Gaijin is an abbreviation of gaigokkujin.Itls the dame charactrers as the chinese ad literally ‘external/outside country person.’ The term itself does clearly connotate that a ‘gaijin’ is different / not one of us / not a citizen.
And I did live in Tokyo for 2.5 years so I do have some experience with the term. and I confess to gleefully pointing out to a Japanese student in the US that actually HE was the gaijin.
Long term resident Tokyo Player put some of my Japanese experiences into perspecttive and context and maybe he can share thoughts here.
Fun fact, Sikhs did not originate in British Columbia.
Sikh live all over the Northern part of the subcontinent* there a big Sikh communities not only in the Pakistani and Indian Punjabs, but within regions which are not part of these provinces and never have been; Delhi for instance and the North West Frontier.
*Not counting expat communuties in Bombay and Calcutta.
There is no way you can contemplate Sikh as synonmous with Punjabi.
How many times do I have to repeat myself. I never said that.
I think I do understand you better now; what you were claiming in this post is that, in reference to those British Columbian Sikhs who happen to also be Punjabis, “Punjabi” is a more “politically correct” term than “Sikh”. Is that correct?
The Sikh vs. Punjabi thing seems so odd… surely Punjabi is an indication of geographical origin while Sikh is a religion… a Sikh from the Punjab isn’t either a Punjabi or a Sikh, they are both…
Is a Catholic from Ireland: Irish or a Catholic?
Is a Jew from New York: Jewish or a New Yorker?
(Just seems very odd to me) 
Isamu, it sounds like you’re objecting to the culture rather than considering gaijin an actual slur. I’ve never heard anyone object to the word gaikokujin before. IME, that’s usually the word foreigners who don’t like gaijin want to be called.
I wouldn’t say that gaijin’s a racially neutral term, but I do think it is neutral. Certainly, 99% of the time it’s used without any intention of causing offense.
That actually does sound similar to gwailo. Once upon a time, gwailo did have a racist connotation, but nowadays it’s almost never used with any intent to cause offense. Some expats in Hong Kong are offended by it, while some happily use it to refer to themselves. I wouldn’t use the word unless I know the person I’m speaking to won’t be offended.
Even reasonably neutral terms can seem insulting / cause offence when they are applied to mean “outsider”.
Would a Caucasian person born in Thailand also get called farang?
What if their family had been there for several generations?
The term pakeha gets used in NZ. It means… well… that’s a bit complicated. (It may mean something like both “people from the sea” and “fey folk”… it is very unlikely to mean anything inherently really bad). 
Effectively it’s a Maori word for non-Maori, a “not us” type term, that gets used in English by many people to mean “New Zealander of European descent”.
Now, while I’m happy to answer “Ngāti Pākehā” to a question about my Iwi from Maori, (Me: ultra-pale, red-bearded… what were they thinking?), I don’t much like using the term in English despite it being “neutral”.
I’m fine with telling Maori who are asking “What is your (Maori) tribe?” an answer of “Not Maori”, but when asked generally what my ethnicity is I’ll answer to New Zealander, or Kiwi.
Not all New Zealanders-of-European-descent (phew) feel this way – some embrace the term, some dislike it more than I do (and yes, some of them probably incorrectly believe that it’s a really insulting term).
I’m just not that keen on answering to what I am, by answering what I’m not… if that makes any sense.
I don’t know about Thailand, but up to the 1970s at least, the Bengali equivalent “phiringi” was used for anyone with any aeuropean/white ancestry, particularly Anglo-Indians.
(Similar terms are used in a wide swath of Africa and Asia and ultimately originate from Arabic “Franj” (Frank) which is what they called the Crusaders.)
I’ve never heard anyone rant on about the Punjabis. I’m not saying “Sikhs” is politically incorrect either though I’ve heard plenty of derogatory complaints about the Sikhs. The whole “Punjabi” thing came up when I responded to a simple question about what else could a Sikh be called.
Then your explanation makes even less sense. You claim that all Sikhs in your area are Punjabi. You have not claimed that all Punjabis in your area are Sikh, so using Punjabi as a synonym for Sikh doesn’t make sense even if we assume that everything you said is true.
noit correct on both counts.
first, gwei means ghost or devil and ALWAYS has a negative connotation in Chinese. It is n an inherently negative term (not an inherently neutral word).
Geilo is commonly used as a negative slur in HK. You can argue with it- is used negatively 20% or 40% or 80% of the time. But itLs a lot more than occaisionallly. I’ve been going to HL for 30 years and lived thwere for 5.
Well, I’m a native Cantonese speaker, and I’ll just have to respecfully disagree with your interpretation.
I would translate the word 鬼 (gwai) by itself as ghost, but not as devil. I would translate devil as 摩鬼. Just like the word ghost in Engilsh, it is NOT always negative in Cantonese. For example, the movie Ghost is called 人鬼情未了 in Hong Kong. Surely no negative connotation is intended there.
Seriously, gwailo is very common word in Hong Kong. Most people there don’t really have a problem with white people nowadays. I don’t see how “20% or 40% or 80%” of the use of such a common word is intended as a racial slur. When I was growing up, my friends and I certainly referred to our expat teachers, even the ones that we liked, as gwailo or gwaipo amongst ourselves, without any ill intents. However, we are aware that some people are offended by the word, and we try to respect that. The problem is that the non-controversial alternative, 西人 (sai yan), is widely perceived to be a very formal word. The only informal alternative is gwailo.
On the occasion that a racial slur is indeed intended, the word you’re looking for is 死鬼佬 (sei gwai lo). That is widely considered to be very offensive.
Gwailo is also not to be confused with 黑鬼 (hak gwai). That is perceived by most to be a racial slur for blacks.
(emphasis mine) I just noticed the interesting typo. Geilo literally means a gay man. Yes, that word is ALWAYS a slur in Cantonese, more akin to homo in English. 