Ateji (当て字) was popularly used before World War II, but after the war use of katakana became more popular and I do not think even schools teach ateji anymore. However, some of examples are:

Asia, アジア, 亜細亜
India, インド, 印度
Philippine, フィリピン, 比律賓
England, イギリス, 英吉利
Holland, オランダ, 和蘭
Paris, パリ, 巴里
Cabbage, キャベツ, 球菜
Coffee, コーヒー, 珈琲 (may still see this at coffee shops or kissaten in Japan.)
Tomato, トマト, 赤茄子
Butter, バター, 牛酪 (may see this on labels on butter)
Beer, ビール, 麦酒 (may see this on labels on beer)
Piano, ピアノ, 洋琴
Glass, ガラス, 硝子

I really do not think even natives Japanese will understand these days if signs were written in Ateji.

Ateji helped me slightly in getting around Tokyo because I know how to read (most) Chinese characters, so they are definitely around in public places though not very common. Or maybe they are kun'yomi or something?

Wait, what? D:

What is it with going over board with saftey at amusement parks? I read elsewhere and just experienced it myself. You have to take everything out of your pockets, incl change, bills and hankerchiefs. I can understand big things, like phones, but really hankerchiefs? Not to mention how this process slows the ride down a lot. Then they will let single riders go alone instead of putting another single rider with them(that happened to me twice) Why is that?

Edit; I'm going to Fuji Q and heard that place is horrible for doing this. :-(

I am guessing you are talking about an amusement park in Japan. Well, I am guessing that beside basic law and regulations, each amusement park come up with its own procedures and most likely those policies differ from ride.

All I can guess is that if they go through items in riders pocket and sorting through what is allowed and what is not allowed, then that likely will slow down the line. May be the line move faster if they simply say everything out from the pocket.

About single riders alone, well, if you feel that strongly about it then you should complain to the amusement park.

Well, least enjoy Fuji Q, it is the first amusement park in Japan to install those extreme ride roller coaster.

Very nice! I knew most of those (cabbage? The first character is for the Ryuukyuu islands, no?), but do you have a longer list of them?

Right, in Kitano, Kobe I recall seeing country names written around the former residences for foreigners, as well as on a couple of paths (one was called "Holland Slope").

Heh, you know "most" Chinese characters? Try adding Japanese kokuji to your lexicon just for kicks!

I do not know if there is a complete list of Ateji (当て字). Since use of katakana become norm for foreign words (外来語), Ateji is not in use every day any more in Japan. My understanding is that Ministry of Education of Japan does not include Ateji as a part of the curriculum, hence the reason Ateji is not taught at public schools in Japan. Because of that many Japanese dictionaries (国語辞典, 漢和辞典) no longer list Ateji these days. My guess is that many native Japanese consider Ateji as more of slang that it is unofficial or old way of writing foreign words.

My guess is that to make a complete list of Ateji, one have to go to libraries, dig out old documents and look up how it was written before WW II.

I think Ateji for cabbage comes from 球 as sphere where spherical shape of cabbage, not as Ryuukyuu (琉球) of Okinawa Islands.

so cabbage is "ball vegetable" and tomato is "red eggplant"...

My question: people from historically closer linked cultures, such as Chinese, Taiwanese, and Koreans, are generally not called gaijins. Starting from where do the foreigners stop being gaijins? Are Vietnamese, Filipinos, Mongolians gaijins? What about Indians?

People are gaijin as soon as they are identified as such. With some ethnicities, this is ascertained in a single glance. Others require more data to reach that conclusion.

Anyone that is not Japanese is "gaijin". But clarity starts to break down once you start talking about things like "nikeijin" and "haafu"...

I've never heard Japanese people referring to other Asians as gaijin, only as gaikokujin. There were older derogatory terms for Chinese and Koreans, but you don't hear them today, at least not in polite society.

East Asians as a group are t�y�jin.

Japanese, if not identifying someone by their nationality, will generally refer people from other Asian countries except the Indian subcontinent as Asian. Interestingly Japanese will not often refer to themselves as Asian.

Most every body else is Gaijin with the exception of people of African descent who are often referred to as Kokujin (which literally translates to black person). Sometimes Caucasians are referred to Hakujin (which literally translates to white person).

Very little effort is made to discover someone's nationality and then use that as a descriptor. Here the policy of "Us" and Them" is alive and well.

What I have taken years to understand, and it still confuses me at times, having been raised in the US where their is a fair bit of sensitivity to this is the Japanese are simply using the words, but attach no sense of bigotry to them They are simply labels to be taken with a grain of salt.

It may be uncommon in daily conversation depending on whom you are talking to, but the government and media refer to non-white foreigners as "gaikokujin" all the time, including cases where the term is not really intended to include white people (e.g. when people talk about 外国人犯罪 "crime by foreigners" or 外国人参政権 "voting rights for foreigners" they are talking about Koreans and Chinese more than any other groups).

I can't remember ever hearing the word "hakujin" used in the wild although I have seen it in books. I have heard 欧米人 (oubeijin) or "Euro-American person" used on occasion.

Hakujin is used very regularly in business discussions between Japanese identifying a person who one or the other party may not have met. In the real estate industry this is tossed about all the time when agents are discussing tenants. It is if there were something identifying about a person that is indicated by their skin color. Japan is a land of labels though so this is to be expected. It makes as much sense as lumping everyone into a Euro-American term like 欧米人 (oubeijin) but such is the nature of the beast.

Taiwan, since before the Chinese washed ashore, had cultural ties with the Philippines/SE Asia. Don't forget that Japan occupied Taiwan too.

More generally, Japan is a land of image. As the Nike slogan says, image is everything. The label is important as a piece of the overall image being conveyed.

A beautiful image is much more highly valued than truth.