Source: SCMP, Culture: Seven Ways to Say Foreigner
Both Laowai & Gweilo are ways to address foreigners in China. Are they harmful, or rude? Where did these words originate?Laowai
Laowai is the Pinyin pronunciation/transliteration of (pinyin: lowi, lit. "old foreign"), an informal term or slang for "foreigner" and/or non-Chinese national, usually neutral but possibly impolite or loose in some circumstances. Formal and polite Chinese terms for foreigner include wigurn (simplified Chinese: ; traditional Chinese: ; literally: 'foreigner'), wibn (; ; 'foreigner guest'), guj yurn ; ; 'international friend') and wigu pengyou (; ; 'foreigner friend').
The term is typically used to refer to Europeans ('whites', 'Caucasians') especially, and to a lesser extent, Native Americans, Latin Americans and Middle Easterners.
"Laowai" usually does not refer to ethnic Han of non-Chinese citizenship or other Asian ethnicities.
The use of the word began in the 1980s, likely as an abbreviation of the term (foreigner) into plus the prefix .
Laowai Character Meaning
As characters and words, lo means "old; senior; aged"; wi means "out; outside; external; outer", and by extension various meanings including "appearance; faraway; distant; non-local; foreign; informal; other; unorthodox".
is a common colloquial prefix of respect (partly out of the value of seniority conferred), its use dating back to some of the earliest Mandarin vernacular records. In Mandarin, the prefix is well-established enough that it is now inseparably fixed in many words, where its original meaning is lost. For example, ; losh "teacher" is composed of lo and ; sh "teacher", and the original word for "teacher" ; sh cannot be used alone. Other examples include ; lotiny "(Lord of) Heavens", ; loxing "fellow townspeople", loh "tiger", and even losh "mouse", an animal traditionally despised for its cultural character as well as its significant damages to humans.
In its active use, the prefix lo is most often added to surnames to show respect in informal registers towards anyone not definitively young. This is often contrasted to another prefix xio "small; little; young", which, added to surnames, shows closeness and friendly affection in informal registers towards anyone more junior and at least slightly younger than the speaker. Another much less common and rather restricted use is attaching to a descriptor to mark such a person, with a slightly humorous undertone. For example, ; lowng "a stubborn one" is composed from ; wng "stubborn".
The associations of the prefix can be positive, indicating age or experiencesuch as lopngyou (; 'old friend')or respect, as in the familiar use of lo to denote the senior and respected members of families or to address teachers (; , losh). It may also be used in combination with part of a person's name (usually the family name) to refer to that person in a familiar and respectful way (for example a person with the surname , or Zhu, could be referred to as , literally "Old Zhu"). This usage is reserved exclusively for adults, but implies familiarity rather than seniority, and is often attached to specific individuals as a nickname rather than being freely used.
However, in certain restricted contexts, it can also carry negative connotations of being old or aged looking (; ), boring old sticks-in-the-mudas in lo gdng (Chinese: )or of years of experience and contemptas in lo dngxi (; ; 'old bastard', lit. "old thing"). It may be used in the arts or in jokes with the sense of "always" or "very": a famous comedy role was named the Lonin (, "Constantly Listless"). As a pun with losh "teacher", ; , Tom Hardy was affectionately known in mainland China as Losh (Chinese: , s ) partly for his perpetually shiny hair.
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