Using Japanese Slang. Anne Kasschau
(Chinese people, similar to the English use of Chink) was used around the same time as a derogatory synonym for chan-koro. Shina-pokopen is even worse, adding the nuance of China being a weak nation. Pokopen came from a Chinese word meaning no good.
After World War II, when China became the People's Republic of China, the acceptable expression for Chinese people became chūgokujin. Later, even shina-soba (Chinese noodles) was changed to chūka-soba, and it would be very difficult to find a Chinese noodle shop that uses the expression shina-soba any more.
The most up-to-date expression for a Chinese restaurant is not chūka ryōri ten, but chugoku ryōri (ten). The reason for this, it is said, is because the owners of such restaurants will be thought of as being pro-Taiwanese (Taiwan is called chūka minkoku) if they use the word chūka.
Because of the close geographical and historical relations between Japan, Korea, and China, there are many derogatory expressions in Japanese for the people of these two neighboring nations. Because of an historical lack of such relationships, there are not as many terms for other foreigners. Nonetheless, here are a few of them.
Gaijin (literally, outside person) is the most common term used for non-Japanese in Japan. It's short for gaikokujin, or outside-country person. Neither term is particularly derogatory in themselves, though non-Japanese quickly tire of hearing them. But when they're spoken in a derogatory tone, they're undoubtedly meant to be just that.
Ketō is a typical disparaging word for a foreigner, particularly one from the West. It comes from the now archaic tōjin (literally, Tang dynasty people in China). Both before and during the Tang dynasty, Japan imported various aspects of other cultures, mainly from China. To be foreign in Japan, therefore, was to be Chinese. In this context, tōjin was adopted to mean foreigner, even for people from countries other than China. This term was even adopted to apply to the Japanese wife of the first American consul general to Japan, Townsend Harris. Her name was Okichi, but she was popularly known as tōjin Okichi.
Ketō or ketōjin was made by adding ke (hair or hairy) to tōjin to mean outlandish hairy foreigner. Western men, with their profuse (compared to the Japanese) facial hair and custom of wearing beards, appeared truly outrageous to the Japanese who first saw them. Artists have immortalized Japanese visions of these men in the woodblock prints of the Tokugawa era. These artists invariably portrayed Western men as having huge noses, red faces, and lots of hair, and the prints they made were called nanbanjin prints after the common word of the day for foreigner. Nanbanjin literally means barbarian from the south, presumably because the first European ships from Portugal came from the south some 450 years ago.
Ame-ko is a combination of amerika (America) and the contemptuous suffix-ko. This term appeared after World War II when the United States occupied Japan, but is no longer used, reflecting the close relationship between the two countries.
Ita-kō is a derogatory expression for Italian people and was created in the same way. We don't know exactly why it was coined, but it may have been because Italy was the first among the Axis powers—Japan's allies in the war—to surrender to the Allies in World War II. Since the Japanese at that time considered surrender to be the supreme disgrace, they must have looked upon the Italians with utter contempt.
The word rosuke comes from roshiya (Russia) and the contemptuous suffix-suke, and was coined after Japan's victory in the Russo-Japanese War of 1904. It can be translated as Russkie.
Dojin (natives or aborigines) is a derogatory word for the inhabitants of developing areas, such as South Pacific islanders (nanyō no dojin) or African natives (afurika no dojin). These expressions appeared quite often in the Japanese mass media, especially on TV comedies and variety programs, until people in the developing nations became aware of it and protested the insensitive treatment. Since then the mass media have been using a modern alternative, namely genjū-min (native people).
Kuronbō or kuronbō can be translated as the distasteful word nigger. They derive from kuro (black) and the derogatory suffix-bō, with an "n" for euphonic purposes. Another derogatory word for blacks is niguro, which comes from the English negro.
Ai-no-ko (half-breed) refers to children of mixed marriages. Traditionally the Japanese have rarely married non-Japanese, so children from such unions come in for their share of contempt. Ai is from aida (in between), and kō is child. Konketsu-ji (literally, mixed-blood child) is a proper word, but it is often used contemptuously as a synonym for ai-no-ko. Both were often used to describe babies fathered, legitimately or otherwise, by Americans in the postwar period.
Hāfu (half) is more up-to-date and is used in such expressions as ano modem wa hāfu (that model is of mixed blood) or kare wa Amerika to Nihon no hāfu da (he's half American and half Japanese). We prefer another approach—the one that says that children of mixed marriages are not half anything, but rather both.
4
Scatology
(sukatorojii)
Scatology is defined as obscenity, especially in language or humor, related to excrement. Although many people think of excrement exclusively as feces, the word really refers to waste matter from all parts of the body. As you will see, the Japanese language is rich in scatological terms.
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