necoandjeff wrote:
> "Rodney Webster" <rgw_news001@knot.mine.nu> wrote in message
> news:rgw_news001-C16AA6.14270901062004@news01.so-net.ne.jp...
> 
>>In article <2i25jbFi9cjjU1@uni-berlin.de>,
>> "mr.sumo.snr" <llanelli14NOSPAM@yahoo.com> wrote:
>>
>>
>>>BTW using the expression 'haafu' around these parts i.e. this newsgroup,
>>>probably goes down about as well as a fart in a spacesuit.
>>
>>Personally I don't find anything wrong with 'haafu' - after all, it's
>>only a word, and certainly not meant to offend or degrade anyone.
>>
>>I'm been referring to myself as "half-German" since I was a kid, and
>>always assumed that "half-something" was the standard way of referring
>>to someone with mixed parentage in English.
> 
> But that's precisely the problem. It is only "half," full stop. Not
> "half-something." The fact that the half isn't specified implies that the
> Japanese don't really care what the other half is. You're only half of what
> everyone else is and nothing more. <snip>

I don't know where you get that idea from. In its contextual use, it is
clear that it means half-gaigin.


-- 
"Oh don't give me none more of that Old Janx Spirit/ No, don't you give
me none more of that Old Janx Spirit/ For my head will fly, my tongue
will lie, my eyes will fry and I may die/ Won't you pour me one more of
that sinful Old Janx Spirit"