What connotation does the term "gaijin" have for you ?

[Tokis-Phoenix]

When you view everyone with suspicion, fear arises.
I think a lot of the people here who live in japan but are non-japanese and are often offended by the term "gaijin", do so because they feel when it is used, it is being used against them as in "you are not a part of our society" or "you will always be a foreigner no matter how long you live here", or perhaps they just feel that their identity as an individual is being smothered by constantly being just grouped as another outsider or foreigner.

When you live abroad, the most important thing is your identity as an individual- in a country that you find hard getting used to, or feel unhappy about in some way or another, it does make you feel better if people give you some mutual respect for being an individual rather than making you feel like outsider all the time.
Its the kind of discomfort you might feel when you've lived your whole life in the countryside, and all of a sudden you find yourself in the hubbub of fast-paced city life. It can be the opposite as well- if you are used to having people around you 24/7 where ever you go, it can be quick a shock to live in the middle of no where, even if you've been doing it for some time, it might not be something you'll ever get used to.

First impressions of the people around you are just as important of theirs of you- if you've lived a large part of your life in japan, i suppose it could become quite disheartening or annoying if people don't give you a chance to be someone different, but just instantly group you up with the rest of the outsiders because of your appearance or family bloodlines. Like others here have said, i think most of what depends is the context the term "gaijin" or "gaikokugin" is used in though.

Personally i wouldn't care less if i went on holiday to japan and some stranger or person i didn't know well called me "gaijin" (as long as they weren't intending it to be deliberatly and obviously offensive) because i am obviously a foreigner, and outsider if you will, and i don't look japanese in the slightest.
If i was half-japanese or korean or something though, i probably would feel offended, because when it comes down to it, there really isn't any obvious difference between most koreans or half-japanese and true japanese (at least to me there isn't), so i would probably be a lot more offended because i would not really be much of a foreigner or outsider, so the person calling me gaijin would probably be raising my non-japaneseness in a more direct way rather than just making a general statement about my appearance (which i believe is the case a lot of the time with non-asian people being called gaijin).

[Maciamo]

When you view everyone with suspicion, fear arises.
I think a lot of the people here who live in japan but are non-japanese and are often offended by the term "gaijin", do so because they feel when it is used, it is being used against them as in "you are not a part of our society" or "you will always be a foreigner no matter how long you live here", or perhaps they just feel that their identity as an individual is being smothered by constantly being just grouped as another outsider or foreigner.

I agree. I also noticed that the word "gaijin" is often used in negative context. For example, my wife and a Japanese friend (married to a Belgian and who has lived in Europe for over 5 years) entered in the metro in Brussels and her friend said "gaijin kusai !" (it stinks the "gaijin"). She was referring to the stronger smell of the many African people in that carriage, but it still offended me because she just associated bad smell with "non-Japaneseness". The Japanese often complain that Caucasians and Blacks "stink" whenever it's hot. It's probably true that in average Mongoloid people have lesser body smells when they sweat, but that does not justify saying "gaijin kusai", especially for a Japanese living abroad.

When you live abroad, the most important thing is your identity as an individual- in a country that you find hard getting used to, or feel unhappy about in some way or another, it does make you feel better if people give you some mutual respect for being an individual rather than making you feel like outsider all the time.

I completely agree here as well. I maybe more "sentitive" than some other foreigners in Japan about always being referred to as a "gaijin", because I have experienced living in many foreign countries, and was never singled out as a foreigner as much as I was in Japan.

Of course, if one has nothing to compare it to, it's hard to speculate whether this is normal behaviour toward foreigners around the world, or if the Japanese are exceedingly keen on stressing people's foreignness. I'd say that Japan is not normal by Western standard (at least Europe, Canada and Australia), but people in other East Asian countries (Korea, China, Thailand, Indonesia...) behave pretty much the same way in that regard. So it's more like a conflict of civilisation (wider cultural group) than just about Japan.

I didn't feel that Indian or Middle-Eastern people made so much fuss about my being foreign. But maybe that's because I haven't really try to integrate there and learn the language ? Well, I knew the equivalent term for "gaijin" after a week in Thailand ("farang") because so many Thai point at you saying "farang" (much more than in Japan, despite the numerous tourists there). I am not aware of the existence of a similar term of "differentiation and exclusion" in any Indo-European language.