I don't want to get in the way of the regulars, who are probably working on their proposed corrections as I speak. I just want to make a couple of comments.
Quote:
Originally Posted by YuriTokoro
Wikipedia says that Gaijin (外人[ɡaidʑiɴ]) is a Japanese word meaning "non-Japanese", or "alien".
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You should probably remove the "[ɡaidʑiɴ]" bit. That's just the pronunciation as written in the International Phonetic Alphabet (IPA). It's pretty normal for English Wikipedia pages to include IPA pronunciations for foreign words or names, but outside of Wikipedia it will probably look like confusing gibberish to most readers.
Quote:
Originally Posted by YuriTokoro
I believe the definitions in Wiki are a bit wrong. The Japanese people don’t have any bad shades of meanings with the word.
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Well, that question seems to be a political minefield, which is one reason the article is practically drowning in citations. If you look at the article's Discussion page, you'll find the writers apparently had a hell of a time agreeing on what to say--the discussion has
nine archive sections! This is the sort of article that can become a real battlefield.
Personally, I think the word may have had some bad connotations among foreigners in the past, but that may be changing; these days a lot of visitors to Japan or foreign residents in Japan seem happy to use it for themselves.