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There's this rather unpleasant sign on a restaurant that says:

中国人&帰化人、残留孤児、中国系混血人児、絶対入店禁止、純血日本男児のみ。

Putting aside the racist content, from a linguistic point of view, the one word that throws me is 人児. It's not in Yahoo, Denshi Jisho, or Goo dictionaries.

I know in general that it means people and children, but I'm unclear on exactly how to read and define it.

What is the right reading? ひとこ、ひとじ、じんこ、じんじ?

And does it mean "young people", or "adults and kids", or "adults or children", or something else?

Lastly, is it actually a compound, or is it just the two individual kanji with their individual meanings that are beside each other like a list (as in "adults, children")?

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  • 1
    Are they taking blood samples of everyone who enters???
    – istrasci
    Jun 20, 2011 at 17:09
  • typo: x 残量孤児 o 残留孤児
    – ento
    Jun 23, 2011 at 16:33

1 Answer 1

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児 is just means child, but could also be used for adopted, and can even used to non-humans.

the one you seen in 中国系混血人児 is not supposed to be 人児, but which should be

中国系(ちゅうごくけい) + 混血人(こんけつじん) + 児(じ) - chinese related (japanese) + mixed blood people's + child

Note: according to some searches, that place is looks like adult store or kind of, sometimes sex related places here reject for foreigner for several (even strange) reasons, but that one is too much. I think that poster might be even offensive for Japanese. And they could be choosing only Japanese to do something bad for example.

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  • So does it mean "children of people who are EITHER Chinese heritage OR mixed blood", or does it mean "children who are of mixed race BECAUSE OF Chinese heritage"? Also, what is the reading of 児 when it is by itself like this? こ or じ?
    – Questioner
    Jun 19, 2011 at 6:09
  • @Dave, They rejecting all just becuase of Chinese heritage, IMO. And I think it supposed to be じ, I will update the post.
    – YOU
    Jun 19, 2011 at 6:15
  • I believe the place is a nightclub or hostess bar, but might now be closed. I saw a picture of the sign here: debito.org/roguesgallery.html So, just to be totally clear, grammatically speaking, the focus is on people of Chinese heritage. (I'm sure in reality they would also reject 韓国系混血人児 and everyone else, but I'm just trying to parse the sign precisely.)
    – Questioner
    Jun 19, 2011 at 6:22

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