Gweilo
Cantonese term for white people, with disputed offensiveness.
Gweilo is a Cantonese slang term for white people, literally translating to 'ghoul man' or 'devil man'. Its history includes racially deprecatory use, though modern usage can be non-derogatory. The term's status as an offensive ethnic slur is disputed among Cantonese speakers and Westerners.
Quick Facts
- Literal translation
- ghoul man or ghost man
- Alternate translation
- foreign devil
- Cantonese pronunciation
- gwáilóu
- Mandarin equivalent
- guizi
Facts from the source article.
Etymology and history
Gwái means 'ghoul', 'ghost', or 'devil', and lóu means 'man' or 'guy', so gwáilóu literally translates as 'ghoul man' or 'ghost man', sometimes rendered as 'foreign devil'. In many Sinitic languages, gwai can be a derogatory curse or insult. A 17th-century Cantonese writer, Qu Dajun, described Africans as 'look like ghouls', and gwáinòuh was once used for African slaves.
Usage
The adjective gwái expresses hate and deprecation, as seen during the Japanese occupation of Hong Kong in World War II, but it is now somewhat obsolete. Cantonese speakers may call each other sēui gwái affectionately, similar to 'Hey, bitch!' in English. An alternative term, sāi yàhn, is used in informal speech, especially when a non-Chinese person is present, but its homonyms include references to female genitalia or boasting, so it is not necessarily polite. A neutral alternative is ngoi gwok yan, meaning 'foreign person'. CFMT-TV in Toronto aired a cooking show named Gwai Lo Cooking (1999), hosted by a Cantonese-speaking European chef who named it; the station described it as 'a self-deprecating term of endearment', and the Canadian Broadcast Standards Council ruled on complaints about it.
Related terms
Gwai is one of several terms for non-Chinese people that can be controversial. In Mandarin, guizi is a slang term for foreigners with a history of racial insult, with variants like Riben guizi (Japanese), er guizi (Korean soldiers in the Japanese army during World War II), and yang guizi (Westerners). However, xiaogui is a common neutral term for a child, and laowai is a less pejorative term for foreigners.
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