On Tue, 01 Jun 2004 14:49:29 +0900, Declan Murphy
<declan_murphy@hotmail.com> wrote:

>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.

Maybe "hafu-and-hafu" would be preferable to those insulted by simply
"hafu". By the way I've got 3 kids with my Japanese wife does that add
up to one and a half?

Raj