Heh. I'm not afraid to vote or say what I take it to mean.

Mostly, when I hear "gaijin", I take it as being "You are an outsider, ignorant of Japanese ways". Saying that, I don't mean that the Japanese I know, who use that term, mean any harm by it. I don't really hold it against them.

I don't understand what the big deal is about being called "gaijin" anyway. Yeah, I think it's a little crazy to be called "gaijin" in my own country, but I just see it as how they are, so I just shrug it off. It doesn't bother me at all.

It must bother some people, though, and a lot. When I started a Yahoo group for non-Japanese women married to Japanese men, and called it "Gaijin Wives of Japanese Men", it offended someone enough to make her not want to join. She said if I didn't change the name, she wouldn't join. I thought that was a little extreme, to say the least.