Gweilo


Gweilo or gwailou is a common Cantonese slang term and ethnic slur for Westerners. In its unmodified form, it refers to people of European descent 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 is disputed by both Cantonese and Westerners alike.

Etymology and history

Gwái means "ghost", and lóu means "man". The term gwáilóu therefore literally means "ghostly man", and is sometimes translated into English as "foreign devil". In Chinese, "ghost" can be a derogatory term used as a curse or an insult. The term ghost has also been used to describe other ethnic groups, for example, a 17th-century writer from Canton :zh:屈大均|Qu Dajun wrote that Africans "look like ghosts", and gwáinòu was once used to describe African slaves.

Usage

The term gwái is an adjective that can be used to express hate and deprecation, an example being the local's expression of their hatred towards the Japanese during their occupation of Hong Kong in World War II with the same gwái. It conveys a general bad and negative feeling but is a somewhat obsolete and archaic/old-fashioned term nowadays and other more modern terms have largely replaced gwái for similarly negative meanings. Cantonese people sometimes call each other sēui gwái, which means bad person, though more often than not it is applied affectionately, similar to "Hey bitch!" in English when used affectionately. Nowadays, Cantonese speakers often refer to non-Chinese people by their ethnicity.
The pejorative sense of gwáilóu can be identified when the term is used as it is the equivalent to saying, with a hatred tonal, which refer white male = "white devil", or just refer gwáilóu as a slang of white guy, which don't really had a insulting nuances.
Although largely considered racist and derogatory by both Cantonese speakers and non-Cantonese people, gwáilóu is sometimes considered to be an acceptable generic racial term for Westerners. Also, some members of the Hong Kong community with European ancestry are indifferent to the term, and those who believe that the best way to defang a word intended as a "slur" is to embrace it, use gweilo to refer to non-Chinese in Hong Kong. Gwailou has, in some instances, been recognised as simply referring to white foreigners in South East Asia and now appears on Oxford Dictionaries defined as such, although non-Caucasian foreigners are not gwáilóu. While gwáilóu is used by some Cantonese speakers in informal speech, the more polite alternative sāi yàn is now used as well, particularly if the conversation involves a non-Chinese person in order to avoid offense.
However, an increasingly common view is that the term is unacceptable in a modern context. The word is not permitted to be used in Hong Kong media due to the offensive nature of the term as brought up by Hong Kong actors of non-ethnic Chinese background.

Related terms

Gwai is one of the term of various terms to refer to a Caucasian foreigner that is considered controversial and potentially offensive; other Cantonese term exists when referring to foreigners, a list of which is given below:.
Guizi is a Mandarin Chinese slang term for foreigners, and has a long history of being used as a racially deprecating insult.
However, xiaogui is a common term in Mandarin Chinese for a child. Therefore, some argue that gui in Mandarin is just a neutral word that describes non-expectable or something hard to predict.
Laowai, is the word most commonly used for foreigners, and is a less pejorative term than guizi. Although laowai literally means "old foreigner", but depending on context, "old" can be both a term of endearment and one of criticism. The pejorative aspect of the term laowai comes from conjoining the words old and outsider, suggesting the described person to be a visibly aged and unfamiliar, characteristics usually associated with apparitions or ghosts.

In popular culture

Comics

According to CFMT-TV, "Gwei Lo" was used as "a self-deprecating term of endearment". Others, however, particularly foreigners living in Hong Kong, and non-Chinese subjected to the term in Vancouver and Toronto, find it to be demeaning or racist.