Gweilo meaning

Help support Wordnik and make this page ad-free by adopting the word gweilo. From the gweilo meaning film star, to the runaway girl, to the mature sex worker, to illegal immigrant, to a " gweilo " singing on the streets, gweilo meaning. I wish they all could be Shanghai girls » Japundit Blog Granted, we can see the gweilo fiddling with MTR Uncle's bag first, but nobody so far has been able to explain what happened prior gweilo meaning this heated argument.

Translations differ depending on who you ask. Apparently it was once meant to mean "foreign devil" an extreme insult , but usually these days is said to mean " ghost man " due to white foreigner's pale skin and is used as a general term to mean foreigner. Gweilos get upset about being called this. Chinese think it's no big deal. Chi sin gweilo. Maa faan gweilo.

Gweilo meaning

I will come right out and say it: "gweilo" is overtly, inherently, intentionally racist. It stigmatizes an entire race as inferior beings. If a Chinese person says that it is a neutral or positive appellation for a Caucasian, they are either being disingenuous or evidently do not know the meanings of the constituent morphemes see below. CantoDict gives the following usages:. See also Wiktionary , which has this interesting etymological note:. For a Wikipedia article on "gweilo" or "gwailo", see here , in Mandarin , in Cantonese. For the Wiktionary article on "gweilo", see here :. Originally Cantonese. From the supposed resemblance of Portuguese and other European skin tones to ghosts. A derogatory term for white people, particularly men, mainly in speech. In nuce, "gweilo" or "gwailo" is Cantonese for "foreign devil " cf. I tried to explain to them that it wasn't very nice to call us that, but they just looked at me dumbly. I don't know what the situation is like there nowadays, since I haven't been back for awhile. Source of the above paragraph. When I first came to Penn in , I tried to establish friendly relations between the University and Chinatown.

Xtifr: I'm White. February 14, am. Issue and quick answer Q: Did the Employer terminate Mr.

In late February , the Employer terminated Mr. Haden claimed that his employment was terminated as a result of his race, or that the termination was influenced by his race — as he was not Chinese. From a community survey conducted by an English newspaper, there appears to be no clear consensus in the community both expatriates and locals included as to whether the word is racially pejorative. In May , Mr. Key legal principles.

In the absence of modifiers, it refers to white people and has a history of racially deprecatory and pejorative use. Cantonese speakers frequently use gwailou to refer to Westerners in general use, in a non-derogatory context, although whether this type of usage is offensive i. Nowadays, Cantonese speakers often refer to non-Chinese people by their ethnicity. While historically, "gwai lo" may have been used by Chinese people as a derogatory remark concerning foreigners, particularly European Westerners, the persons consulted by the Council indicate that it has since lost much of its derogatory overtone. The Council finds that the expression has also lost most of its religious meaning, so that "foreign devil" no longer carries the theological significance it once did.

Gweilo meaning

Open menu. By Ryan General. But the generally-accepted, friendly-sounding title is unlike others used by neighboring countries when referring to visiting White folks as pointed out by SCMP. For instance, in the Philippines, Caucasians regardless of nationality are generally referred to as Kano , which is simply a shortened form of Americano. In Thailand, they are the Farang White race ; Indonesia, orang bule Albino person , while in Singapore and Malaysia, the term is angmoh red hair.

Tftactics lol

Of course, she didn't, even though she was learning how to read and write Mandarin. While the court found that there were staff who did not turn up at meetings with Mr. A Black person once said to me when my street-crossing held up their driving, "Can you walk any slower, n-a? Haden to determine whether it could be inferred from the findings of fact that his employment had been terminated on the ground of race. Haden instead. Hun Kraut. I knew that I'd be facing an uphill battle in my attempts to carry out meaningful exchanges. It's quick and easy. Filipinos Vietnamese. The court also commented on two other incidents cited by Mr. People's Daily.

.

Some kind of instinct tells me that it would. Many words with "yang" are no longer included in the vocabulary of the younger generation and might be wiped out in the memory of the next few generations. In America, one reason the n-word is so taboo is that it evokes this very gnarly apparatus of exclusion and violence that is in no way abstract or theoretical. Hun Kraut. Ghosts were generally seen as white or transparent in pre-modern European cultures. When you say "nearly all of the terms he taught us were derogatory: Malays, Filipinos, blacks "black devils" , Indians", which of those do you regard as derogatory? Most of the people I interact with are Taishanese but fluent in Cantonese, so maybe that is a local thing? September 12, am. Would an American referring to "niggers" be judged not racist as long as they were aware of the meaning of the constituent morpheme? The N word is not offensive when used as a term of endearment between African Americans. Growing up in HK speaking Cantonese I can say confidently no one pictures a devil when saying gweilo. Macau History and Society. One could I guess either treat that as evidence that "ang mo" on its own was not viewed as sufficiently derogatory, or as evidence which might or might not be empirically true as a matter of the timeline that "ang mo" is a clipped version of those more clearly derogatory phrases and evokes some of their baggage.