re: #264 wheat-dogghazi-mailgate
The same characters (外国人) in Mandarin are pronounced “waiguoren,” with the same meaning. Chinese agree with the Japanese (how rare!) in that Chinese living abroad are not referred to as waiguoren, but when they return they are called “haigui” (sea turtles).
The mandarin equivalent of gaijin is 洋鬼子 “yangguizi” — foreign devil, especially referring to Westerners — or just “guizi” — foreign invaders. I was referred to as a yangguizi only once (that I know of), by a friend of a student making some reference to me online. He didn’t know I could read some Chinese, and I told him in English that I was offended and he needed to apologize. He did.
There is a special category for other Asians, particularly the formerly colonized (Taiwanese, Koreans, and Chinese): sangokujin (三国人). It’s not used often, as far as I know, but Tokyo Governor/blowhard Ishihara Shintaro made it famous a few years ago when he said that in the event of a natural disaster, the self-defense forces should be on the lookout for subversive sangokujin. Not only was it offensive, but in the last great Tokyo disaster of 1923, probably 5000 Koreans (and many Japanese communists) were targeted and killed by vigilante groups and police over rumors that they were looting and poisoning wells.