posted
What's the deal with this word? Morbo used it in Bob's "Musings" thread, and I know that Neal Stephenson tends to use it in his novels. How long has it been around? (I never encountered it before about a year or two ago.) Why prefer it over "Japanese"? I understand that the Japanese don't call Japan "Japan"; they call it Nippon or Nihon. But they don't call themselves "Nipponese" either. The word in Japanese is nihonjin. So if you're going to be using a non-native word either way, why go with the one that is more likely not to be understood?
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posted
Spanglish is fun to use. Konglish is very fun to use. I assume people are now experimenting with "Jaglish," "Japglish," or "Englonese" What would combining Japanese with English be called?
Posts: 2445 | Registered: Oct 2004
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posted
You know, I had a feeling that it wasn't a new word. What I'm wondering is whether it's been in use before and I've just been oblivious, or whether it's seeing some sort of resurgence. I've definitely never heard a Japanese or Japanese-American person use the term, and I've only heard a non-Japanese person use it very recently.
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posted
Every time I see that word it irritates me, kind of like how being called "Oriental" bothers some Asians. I may be in the minority, though. I have no idea how other Japanese or Japanese-Americans feel.
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quote: I have never understood why "Oriental" is offensive.
After all, doesn't it just mean "Eastern"? What's offensive about that? It just refers to an area of the globe, just like Asian.
I think it is offensive because it is used to classify hundreds of cultures into one all encompassing stereotype. When I hear oriental, I think short, slanty eyes, and salty food. It is racist (or at least ignorant) by nature.
Look at oriental seasoning. What is oriental flavored raman? It is as ridiculous as "western flavored" raman. We don't have western flavored raman because no convincing stereotype of the West could be packaged into a 1inch x 1inch square packet.
posted
What I've most often heard is that the term "Oriental" is properly applied to objects, not people, and so applying it to people is offensive. I don't really understand that one either.
My best guess is that the term implies some sort of Euro-centric viewpoint that classifies the Orient (or, the East) as "other," but that's stretching.
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posted
I used "Nipponese" because Japanese refer to their country as Nippon. I certainly didn't mean to be offensive, I was trying to be hyper-PC.
You're right that Stephenson uses the term, which is probably why the distinction was on my mind, as I have read lots of his work in past year.
Someone, I think it was Stephenson in Cryptonomicon, describes a character who always thought that Germans spoke German and lived in Germany, then when he gets there, finds that everyone considers themselves Deutsche speaking Deutsch and living in Deutschland.
Posts: 6316 | Registered: Jun 2003
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posted
Truthfully, all the Japanese people I know call it Nihon. And they've said that no one around them calls it Nippon. Nippon is sort of frowned upon because it hearkens back to the old, take-over-the-entire-world, WWII days, as far as I recall.
Posts: 4816 | Registered: Apr 2003
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quote:Gestures (Gesten, Handzeichen) While we don't include inappropriate gestures in this glossary, you should know that some hand signs or gestures are universal, but others are not. In some parts of the world, the American OK sign (finger and thumb forming an "O") is an insult having to do with a body orifice. If a German taps his/her forehead with the index finger in someone's direction, that is a bad thing (meaning the other person is an idiot), and punishable by a fine if a policeman sees it or someone files charges.
I know gestures and body language are tricky and different from culture to culture. I had heard of the "OK" gesture being obscene in some cultures, and tapping the forehead can mean someone is stupid or insane in many cultures. But you can be fined just for tapping your forehead and pointing? That seems a mite draconian.
posted
Thanks for the feedback, Saxon and Ry. I guess I'll go back to "Japanese."
Mike, this reminds me, I haven't been back to http://www.sakeriver.com/ since I got internet at home a few days ago, I'll try to click by today or tomorrow.
Posts: 6316 | Registered: Jun 2003
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quote:I certainly didn't mean to be offensive, I was trying to be hyper-PC.
I know. And I didn't mean for this thread to be pointed at you in specific, more at the term itself. And really it doesn't offend me so much as sort of annoy me. Don't worry about it; we're cool.
quote:I haven't been back to http://www.sakeriver.com/ since I got internet at home a few days ago, I'll try to click by today or tomorrow.
The door's always open.
Posts: 4534 | Registered: Jan 2003
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quote:"Nippon" is sort of frowned upon because it hearkens back to the old, take-over-the-entire-world, WWII days
During the Salt Lake Winter Olympics the Japanese expatriates at my company had special bumper stickers made up that said: "ganbare nippon!" That means "go Japan!" When I read the bumper sticker aloud as "ganbare nihon," one of my co-workers corrected me and said that when it's used in that context, I becomes "nippon," even though the characters are the same.
Morbo, you know that trick in which you "steal" a kids nose and pretend to have it trapped between your index and middle finger? When in Japan don't ever stick your thumb between your index and middle finger.
Posts: 2655 | Registered: Feb 2004
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posted
I went and asked my Japanese sister-in-law what she thinks about the word "nipponese". She started laughing. She assures me that it sounds completely stupid. Apparently, to her it sounds about as silly as "Japango" (the inverse of "Nipponese") sounds to me.
Posts: 1002 | Registered: Feb 2005
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posted
Interesting that Nipponese is of such relatively recent origin. I'd seen it as auction jargon apparently used to label Japanese lacquerware, paintings, pottery, kimonos , metalwork, jewelry, etc that had been imported rather early into Europe: ie the period beginning around the time when the Shogun's delegation first presented itself to the Court of Elizabeth the First, and ending sometime between the MeijiRestoration and the Russo-JapaneseWar when Japan became fully recognized as a modern industrial nation.
Stephenson's use of Nipponese is likely to be a deliberate (though not malicious) juxtaposition of the pre1945 Empire and the late'70s through the 80's mantra* of "Japan is gonna take over the world". The latter was in reference to its extremely favorable trade balances and huge reserves of foreign currency and treasury bonds; as well as Japan's increasingly rapid inroads into high-tech previously dominated by Americans and to a lesser extent the Europeans.
So when cyberpunk (which began in the late '60s) exploded in popularity during the '80s with the appearance of BladeRunner and Neuromancer, the milieu of the Japanese-Commercial-Empire-dominating-future-culture was adopted into the genre. Hence the shorthand comparison between pre1945 Japan and the postAmericanEmpire world of commercial Japan.
* Mostly from American conservatives and neo"conservative"s, along with some Europeans. And heavily covered by the "liberal"media: I think Newsweek and Time were amongst the many who used the RisingSun battleflag on their covers.
posted
Maybe I was making an undue generalization... Probably I should have said that it's used in the sense of nationalistic pride. I misspoke... :/
Posts: 4816 | Registered: Apr 2003
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posted
No Ryuko, you were dead on. I often observe the "take-over-the-entire-world" attitude in my co-workers. Their reasoning for this attitude is that: "Japan is a narrow country with many people; therefore, we must be more aggressive in the marketplace." It sometimes seems to me that they are still fighting WWII, only on a different front.
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posted
I personally refer to myself as "Japanese." I hadn't even heard "Nipponese" until recently. It sounds odd to me, though not offensive.
Posts: 3546 | Registered: Jul 2002
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posted
I second the confusion about "Oriental" being offensive. We talk about Western and Eastern cultures and perspectives and whatnot. I have always thought the words "Oriental" and "Occiental" sounded beautiful and exotic. I have no negative connotations with the word.
I assume "Oriental" is only offensive because it was at some point in time used commonly in an offensive way and still carries the taint of negative connotation. I hate when that happens to cool words. Posts: 7050 | Registered: Feb 2004
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posted
What rarely happens to white American citizens is being asked the question "What are you?", with the answer (eg occupation, avocation, sport, hobby, area of study, etc) not being accepted as complete until an ethnic background is given.
posted
Is there a PC term for Asians from the Indian subcontinent? Somehow I doubt my Bangladeshi friends would appreciate being called Indians. I have heard them (Bangladeshi) refer to themselves (Indians and Bangladeshi) as "brown people" but I do not know if it would be offensive if a white person used the term. Similarly, is there a PC term to encompass the general Asian phenotype? Oriental is what I would have used but that is out.
Posts: 1364 | Registered: Feb 2003
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posted
I never heard the term Nipponese until I watched "Windtalkers" on A&E this week-end. In that context, it sounded like a slur, since they used it along with "Japs" and "Nips" (as in "I want to kill me some").
The other Maui epidemiologist is a Japanese national. I've never heard her refer to Japan as Nippon or anything else, always Japan, and she certainly describes herself as Japanese.
Posts: 2069 | Registered: May 2001
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AntiCool: I typically refer to myself as bi-racial, or "half-Japanese, half-white" (sometimes I specify German/English). Also, sometimes I have to put "other" on applications, though "multiracial" is becoming more common as an option.
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posted
No, I don't refer to myself as white. Nor do I refer to myself as Japanese, actually. I was being lazy in my first post.
Posts: 3546 | Registered: Jul 2002
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posted
Oriental went out of use* in refering to people during the racial-name concious '60s via "Things are oriental. People are Asian."
* Along with other perjoritives-when-used-by-outsiders referring to those of NativeAmerican, Jewish, Italian, MiddleEastern, German, Irish, African, Japanese, Polish, Latino, etc ancestry.
posted
I still don't see the reasoning behind the statement that things are oriental and people are asian.
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