[kaixin]

For those of you who know Cantonese, can you please tell me if these following terms are racist and derogatory:

1) gwailo=usually means white person.
2) hak gwai=black person. You be surprised how some blacks in America know this term. Sometimes, we use "lo muk" (big dark mole) instead.
3) Ga jai=Japanese.
4) Lao sung tao=Mandarin speaker or northerner.
5) Chan gou=Person from mainland China.
6) Herngha lo=Person from the countryside or ignorant bumpkin.

[MengTzu]

kaixin, on Aug 20 2005, 10:03 AM, said:

For those of you who know Cantonese, can you please tell me if these following terms are racist and derogatory:

1) gwailo=usually means white person.
2) hak gwai=black person.  You be surprised how some blacks in America know this term.  Sometimes, we use "lo muk" (big dark mole) instead.
3) Ga jai=Japanese.
4) Lao sung tao=Mandarin speaker or northerner.
5) Chan gou=Person from mainland China.
6) Herngha lo=Person from the countryside or ignorant bumpkin.

I suppose these words are equivalents of the racial slurs you find in American society, like n*ggers, sp*cs, k*kes, ch*nks, etc. But then despite the fact that racial diversity in Hong Kong is relatively high compared to other East Asian countries, the racial minorities in Hong Kong are extremely small in number and they normally don't speak Cantonese. So they are too weak to fight them, and probably don't even have to deal with them since they don't speak Cantonese.

Another one is "ah cha," which refers to Asian Indians. If anyone is most discriminated against in Hong Kong, it is the Indians. There are quite a lot of Indians living in Hong Kong; they originally went there as soldiers for the British, and a lot of them settled there. A lot of them speak Cantonese. I can't imagine the kind of bs they have to put up with in Hong Kong: they are virtually "invisible" in the sense that they have very little representation. Their contribution is overlooked: I think there was a rich Indian Hong Kongese who liked founded or donated the first building to the University of Hong Kong, or something. Anyway, watch this Hong Kong made movie called Chungking Express. I haven't seen it, but I heard part of it is about how Indian people were discriminated against in Hong Kong.

[dragonknight]

USC, on Aug 20 2005, 11:05 AM, said:

personally, I do not see those are derogatory and i explain as flw :

1) gwailo - gwai means ghost. ppl from the west ie white, during the Qing when white first come to the Canton area, many rural folks did have a shock to see such human being who's fair skin, blue eye, and it reminds them that when someone passed away, such skin colour tones appear. thus the gwailo term came around.
2ndly, during the early part, the westerner have all those advance technology like
gun who can shoot to kill someone, thus those ignorant rural folks called it
gwai-cheong that means "ghost gun" typically used by white.

2) hak gwai - black ghost, refer to those Black African, again, this is a joke, my classmate (Chinese) tend to have a very dark complex, we called him intimately hak gwai, which he does not mind.

'Gwai' can mean either 'ghost' or 'devil'. In English, there is a difference between ghost and devil. Ghost is scary but it can also be benign whereas a devil is scary and evil. Therefore, the more appropriate translation of 'gwailo' is 'foreign devil'.
I don't think it was due to the fact that the westerners had fair skin. The difference in skin colour between a fair Chinese's skin and a westerner's skin cannot be that great to cause a shock, as you put it. If your explanation was correct, then you would not call a black African, 'hak gwai' because 'gwai' by your definition was 'white ghost'.

This post has been edited by dragonknight: 20 August 2005 - 01:49 PM

[Gweilo]

From what my wife tells me, and from what I've read, it seems that "Gweilo" has faded as a purely derogatory term. Today it is used as more of a description, and many expats themselves use it...rather like a joke among themselves.

[tongyan]

USC, on Aug 20 2005, 10:05 AM, said:

personally, I do not see those are derogatory and i explain as flw :

1) gwailo - gwai means ghost. ppl from the west ie white, during the Qing when white first come to the Canton area, many rural folks did have a shock to see such human being who's fair skin, blue eye, and it reminds them that when someone passed away, such skin colour tones appear. thus the gwailo term came around.

i don't think this holds. foreigners were all called "gwai" 鬼 in not only cantonese but other flavors of chinese. since europeans came by the sea, they were called "yang gui zi" or "yeung gwai zi" 洋鬼子 - cantonese just added their own touch to the term by adding the "lo" 佬 at the end ("lo" is added to many country names to describe the people of that country/region) and using the "gwai" 鬼 as a racial descriptor.

Quote

2) hak gwai - black ghost, refer to those Black African, again, this is a joke, my classmate (Chinese) tend to have a very dark complex, we called him intimately hak gwai, which he does not mind.

it's not a joke. i think its because chinese settlers in america encountered blacks with the "gwai-lo" that they just figured they were of the same stock as the "gwai-los", only black in skin-tone so they added the haak 黑 in front of gwai 鬼

Quote

3)lo pak means daikon, which is the favourite Jpn favourite root, they make pickles
miso soup with daikon, and in those old poor days, almost many dishes they eat have daikon in it, thus the terms "lo pak tou" comes about.

i dunno... i like daikons alot myself and i doubt that japanese actually like it alot more than i do. the real reason why they are called lo baak tau 萝卜头 is because of their hairstyle. before the modern era, the japanese men had tied their hair into some sort of bun on top of their head which made them look like the top of the daikon root.

Quote

4) lao su lo - generally refers to those mandarin speaker especially from the
north, primarily from Shandong area. Shandong businessmen are shrewd and
trying to capture Cantonese market, but they can't even speak proper cantonese,
thus the local buss ppl branding this group of buss ppl "lao su lo" meaning asking
local buss ppl trying to avoid this group. you might be "eaten up" by them.

i'm not sure what lao su means and i've never actually heard of this term before. however, there is a term called "lao sung" or "lao tau" or even "lao lo, lao mui" the base term is "lao sung" ('lao-sung' is a cantonese approximation of the mandarin pronunciation of 老兄) which is derived from the fact that cantonese perception of northerners always addressing each other as "lao xiong" 老兄
the other terms arose in part because, again, cantonese perceived northerners as always addressing people with a 老 in front of their region name/nationality like lao-guang 老广 for cantonese lao-mei 老美 for americans and lao-hei 老黑 for blacks.

[Moose]

Gweilo, on Aug 20 2005, 03:29 PM, said:

From what my wife tells me, and from what I've read, it seems that "Gweilo" has faded as a purely derogatory term. Today it is used as more of a description, and many expats themselves use it...rather like a joke among themselves. 

Just like the term "angmoh" which literally translates to "red hair" in hokkien, but i wonder how did that term come about since not all europeans have reddish hair and only those from the nordic countries have this.

[Miborovsky]

Abunene refers to Indians. Not sure what dialect it is though.

[qrasy]

1) What I frequently hear to represent foreigners is like 美国佬 American，英国佬Englander， 德国佬 German. So 鬼佬 make a very derogatory sense to me. About 红毛, it's quite new to me. I got it from Singaporean. I wonder which European they met first.
2) hak gwai=黑鬼. 鬼 as base ('head' in language study) seems less respectful than 佬. E.g. 印尼鬼, 日本鬼, 美国鬼.
I have no idea of "lo muk" (big dark mole).
3) Ga jai=Japanese. (From USC's explanation) か仔. か 'ka' is used for questions.
It's like Indonesian who can't speak Asian Indian say 'nehi nehi' to laugh at them. If I'm not wrong 'nehi' means 'no'?
4) Lao sung tao. What is "Tao"?
5) Chan gou=?? 哥 I have no Idea since I can't find the character.
6) Herngha lo=乡(鄉)下佬. Very clear it means "villager", who live in rural area 乡(鄉)下.

This post has been edited by qrasy: 21 August 2005 - 01:42 AM

[kaixin]

^tao is 'head' in Cantonese.

[qrasy]

So tao=頭
what is "Chan" in Chan gou?

[TwinkieDP]

USC, on Aug 20 2005, 12:05 PM, said:

snip....

3) ga jai - or "lo pak tou" generally refer to Japanese, cos the Jpn tones tend to
end with a  ka sound ?? eg like sodesu ka?? thus for those unfamiliar with Jpn
language, we call them Ka jai.
lo pak means daikon, which is the favourite Jpn favourite root, they make pickles
miso soup with daikon, and in those old poor days, almost many dishes they eat have daikon in it, thus the terms "lo pak tou" comes about.

snip....

I thought they were called "lo pak tou" because of the Top Knot hair that feudal Japanese used to wear...

[Klamath]

Well, I think there is no racism exists in China.

If there could be a comparison, I think the provincial-discrimination is much worse than the " racism" while the former is still a little thing and a significant part of regional culture. Strictly says,as long as the chinese society remains.It doesn't matter, and just bring a little flavor to our life which doesn't hurt anyone much. Without that I can't imagine how boring it would be.

Note: As one of the most typical chineseness, chinese like make comparison between families even in the same family. A mother would be most upset when she heard that the boy of her neighbourhood won a higher score in test than her own son.

This post has been edited by Klamath: 22 August 2005 - 08:50 AM

[tongyan]

qrasy, on Aug 22 2005, 02:15 AM, said:

So tao=頭
what is "Chan" in Chan gou?

I don't think there's a 'correct' character for it. The one that is commonly used to represent that sound is 燦

[qrasy]

And what's the meaning of it?

[Klamath]

kaixin, on Aug 20 2005, 06:03 PM, said:

1) gwailo=usually means white person.
2) hak gwai=black person.  You be surprised how some blacks in America know this term.  Sometimes, we use "lo muk" (big dark mole) instead.

I was quite often called by my GF as "si gui"(死鬼） dead ghost if I did something make her disppointed， or I look straight to another beauty walking in streets , she would shout to me "看你个大头鬼”.
Come on, one day if anyone is called by a female like this, a half possbility he should be with gratitude.