On 10/3/05 10:24 PM, "necoandjeff"  typed:

> declan_murphy@hotmail.com wrote:
>> necoandjeff wrote:
>>> <snip>And I've heard a number of other such
>>> anecdotes from Nagoya as well, like a friend who took his shirts to
>>> the dry cleaners and got them all back with "gaijin" written on the
>>> inside collar. Based merely on the stories I've traded with others
>>> over the years, Nagoya seems to be a somewhat unique town.
>> 
>> I've received a couple of gaiginsama notes over the years, but also
>> when back in Iidabashi. At midnight mass in Hakodate a while back it
>> wasn't a note but in the aisle for the Eucharist.
> 
> Gaijinsan and gaijinsama are heard pretty much everywhere in Japan (a quaint
> and mostly harmless moniker, although no foreigner I know considers being a
> gaijin their profession...) But that is quite different from a dry cleaner
> who doesn't even have the decency to ask a customer their name so they can
> write it on their shirt collar, don't you think? Cultural comparisons aren't
> always accurate, but can you imagine a dry cleaner in Marin county who
> writes "black guy" on the inside collar of a customer's shirt? I think it's
> pretty much the same thing.
> 
> Jeff
> 

The group haven't bickered about whether 外人 is a bad word for a long time.
Which side do you want to take this time?