Talk:Gweilo

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News This article has been cited as a source by a media organization. See the 2006 press source article for details.

The citation is in: Nelson Bennett (November 3, 2006). "Racism alleged over vanity plate". The Richmond News.

Articles for deletion This article was nominated for deletion on 28 February 2006. The result of the discussion was KEEP.

Contents

[edit] Gwai or Gwei

Actually, sei gweilo is still very much in use, isn't it? I have been called like that several times during my stay in HK. --84.138.180.41 09:04, 20 October 2005 (UTC)

I moved the page becuase "gweilo" is more popular than "gwailo"

-- Jerry Crimson Mann 21:36, 16 Jun 2005 (UTC)

What about Jau Gwai? :-D — Instantnood 04:01, Jun 17, 2005 (UTC)

In a sense, I would prefer "Gwei" instead "Gwai" here. :) -- Jerry Crimson Mann 04:36, 17 Jun 2005 (UTC)

If we follow the way the government transliterate people's names and place names, it should be Chau Kwai. In Jyutping it's Zau Gwai. :-D — Instantnood 10:55, Jun 17, 2005 (UTC)
Well, actually there's no consensus about the translation. Both terms are fine by me, to be frank, and do it another way later on if there's a proof of a definite transliteration. ;) -- Jerry Crimson Mann 10:57, 17 Jun 2005 (UTC)
:-P — Instantnood 11:18, Jun 17, 2005 (UTC)

[edit] Guizi

Is the term really borrowed by Cantonese??? it seems that the term guizi was originally used to mean the Japanese, and later used to refers to the white men (洋鬼子)...--K.C. Tang 03:50, 12 July 2005 (UTC)

[edit] Move to Wiktionary

I transwiki'd this article to Wiktionary and replaced the current version with a soft-redirect. user:Instantnood reverted that edit with the comment This is more than a dictionary definition. Please discuss at the talk page. Thanks.

I've read and now re-read the article. The contents of this article are a detailed discussion of the meanings, origins and usage of a word. It includes synonyms and related words. Those are components of a dictionary definition. It is not the content that I would expect to see in a truly great, unabridged encyclopedia. It is, however, the content that I would expect to see in a truly great, unabridged dictionary. I believe that the content belongs in Wiktionary, not in Wikipedia because Wikipedia is not a dictionary has been established policy since long before I joined the project.

I see no possibility that this article can be expanded past a dictionary definition and into an encyclopedia article. I would be happy to be proven wrong, though. If you can show me what in this article is more than a discussion of the meanings, origins and/or usage of the word or if you can expand the article past that state, I will withdraw my objections. Rossami (talk) 01:18, 16 September 2005 (UTC)

It's been almost 4 months. The article is still a mere dictionary definition. It has some excellent discussion of the usage and connotations of the term but that is content more appropriate to a dictionary than an encyclopedia. So far, there is no encyclopedia article here. Per Wikipedia is not a dictionary, I have returned this article to it's state as a soft-redirect to Wiktionary. I strongly encourage the participants on this page to follow the link to Wiktionary and to continue to improve the definition there. Thanks. Rossami (talk) 05:35, 11 January 2006 (UTC)
How is that a dicdef!? enochlau (talk) 06:23, 11 January 2006 (UTC)
It is an article about a word. It includes the meaning (including connotations), usage (including examples), origins, antonyms, synonyms and related words. It is not an article about the underlying concept or thing. In accordance with our long-standing policy that Wikipedia is not a dictionary, an acceptable encyclopedia may begin with a definition but must go beyond that. So far, no one has described any content in this article that goes beyond the content that I would hope to see in a great, unabridged dictionary. What's here is good content but it was misplaced. It belongs in Wiktionary. Rossami (talk) 12:51, 11 January 2006 (UTC)
What's the doing here then? I think if the article contains any sort of explanation as to its cultural setting (e.g. "This reflects a transformation in which an ethnic group begins referring to itself with a term which was originally considered an ethnic slur."), it has transcended the level of dicdef. Compare the article of old to the stuff you find on Wiktionary - it's far more detailed and won't fit in there at all. enochlau (talk) 14:11, 11 January 2006 (UTC)

This article fits under Category:Pejorative terms for people and can be more than a dictionary entry. Shawnc 14:58, 11 January 2006 (UTC)

[edit] derogatory

"It is used so commonly by Cantonese speakers to refer to white people and westerners in general that its use is not always derogatory." Such a statement calls for a citation, as frequent use does not automatically mean non-derogatory: could the word be casually and neutrally used to directly address a random westerner, as in "hello, gweilo" or "I remember you, you're that gweilo who.."? Shawnc 13:20, 15 January 2006 (UTC)

I disagree with this article saying that it's mostly used as non-derogatory. Gweilo is equivalent to calling somebody "whitey" or "darkie". Some Cantonese use the term 西人, literally "Western person", eg. Westerner, as a more polite, non-derogatory term. Dyl 15:56, 3 June 2006 (UTC)
"Westerner" is more written language than spoken. When speaking, most HKers will use the term "gweilo" to mean "the white guy".--little Alex 01:29, 6 June 2006 (UTC)
I'm not disputing that Gweilo is used more often, it certainly is. The point that I'm making is that Gweilo still has a negative connotation, even if commonly used. Dyl 07:11, 6 June 2006 (UTC)
See my very un-p.c. edits. I'm confronted with Chinese racism and Chinese racist linguistic terms EVERY DAY and the pretense that gweilo is not derogatory is a load of crap; yet at the same time people who used it nonchalantly justify it as "well, you used to the bosses so it's OK for us to discriminate aginst you/insult you as it's our turn now" or "well, how would you know, you're not Chinese". Ditto with the old usage of Chinaman, which many North American Chinese happily use for themselves, and not even necessarily jokingly (i.e. those the new Chinese call "bananas"), and which remains in backcountry dialects of English in the Pacific Northwest without any pejorative context in the minds of the people using it; also in many Native American/First Nations language where it's also the adjectival form, e.g. "Chinese food" would be chinaman muckamuck in Chinook Jargon, though latter-day chinookology has coined the phrase china tillikum, but that's a neologism created because of p.c. sensitivities not an authentic word. What pisses "us" off so much is the endless pretense that anything racist about Chinese culture isn't actually racist, while nearly anything someone else says about the Chinese is immediately denounced as racist. We explored our double standards a long time ago, and made efforts to fix them. I'd say it's Chinese culture's term to EXPUNGE gweilo from the language in the same that "nigger" and "chink" are no longer acceptable in English. But changing the Chinese language so as to not offend non-Chinese people would no doubt constitute a "humiliation" or a "loss of face" for Chinese culture, right? yeah ,right....hypocritesSkookum1 18:55, 6 July 2006 (UTC)

I must disagree with the current wordage that seeks to defend a POV interpretation of how the word is used. Common usage is not exclusive of offensiveness. The term, especially its derivative 黑鬼, is used often in a derogatory manner. Yes, I do think the term can be used in a neutral manner, and I have actually known expats in HK to use it to describe themselves. But it is also often used in a negative manner. The article needs to be edited to reflect this, instead of this description of "mostly not derogative" or "slightly pejorative". These qualifiers border on Wikipedia:Original research if they have no sources to back up the claim. At the very least, the offensiveness of 黑鬼 needs to be made clear. Hong Qi Gong 21:33, 6 July 2006 (UTC)

A few years ago on the web, I actually stumbled upon a group started by a local HKer that wanted to push for people to stop using this term in normal conversation, saying that it's offensive. But I just simply can't find its website anymore. If anybody know of the group I'm talking about or know of a similar group, please link it up. Hong Qi Gong 16:51, 7 July 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Inline commenting

I don't know if there are any official policies against it, but personally I just find inline commenting annoying. Can we not do this? If you want to make a comment on specific texts in the article, just do it here in the Talk page. Hong Qi Gong 17:58, 7 July 2006 (UTC)

[edit] What Skookum1 has to say about the Opium War

I'm going to delete the inline commenting that Skookum1 did, but I'm re-posting it here. This is what he had to say about the Opium War in relations to this term:

"really? and what did they call us before the Opium Wars? What are the older words, then?"

Hong Qi Gong 18:00, 7 July 2006 (UTC)

OK, HongQiGong ("flowery/perfume yoga", I'm guessing, if "hong" is the same as in HK); where's the cite to prove that "gweilo" was a creation of the Opium Wars period? If there's no cite, that shouldn't be said, as it gives a trumped-up justification for what is clearly a racist term, by any standard. And if it was created during the Opium Wars, what was the word for white people before the Opium Wars? Surely we didn't not-exist; even if we were illegal in China, that is...(which was pretty much the case, since China was/is patently racist towards non-Chinese).Skookum1 18:15, 7 July 2006 (UTC)

You're incredibly far off on the translation of my username.
  1. It's not Cantonese.
  2. "Hong Kong" is a badly romanised name that was just kept in usage. "Heung" is a better romanisation for 香, or "fragrant".
  3. Thinking "QiGong" means yoga, you've first mixed Cantonese with Mandarin, thinking my name means "perfume yoga". Secondly, 氣功, or qigong is nothing like yoga.
  4. My username is in Mandarin. It's the name of a famous character in kungfu novel 射鵰英雄傳, or The Legend of the Condor Heroes, written by Jinyong.
Anyway, the only reason I moved your comment here is that I'm personally annoyed by inline comments inserted in the article itself. Plus, this way, we can actually have a discussion about your concern. Hong Qi Gong 18:37, 7 July 2006 (UTC)

[edit] gwei or gwai

it should be gwai because in cantonese its pronounced gwai. in mandarin its pronounced gui. so gwei is definitely wrong. i dont know who is the drunk fool that came up with that spelling.

[edit] Factual errors: 鬼佬 / 白鬼

The article sounds like the author was a little resentful of us whities while writing it, but aside from the tone, there're some facts that dont jibe well, certainly not without citation.

-Never heard of 黑鬼. I didn't they were an imposing enough presence to merit the slur. -The mainland term is 白鬼, and only occasionally, if the context is known, 鬼子. That's bai2 gui3. I don't think this is an HK term. -The term is considered by anyone I've ever met to be quite obviously offensive. It's picked up some light-hearted intention, but still only in safe company. -What the hell is the author citing with 紅鬚綠眼? Is that supposed to be a reference to dragons or something? It sounds made-up. spetz 68.44.192.170 23:35, 8 November 2006 (UTC)

I'm not sure about 紅鬚綠眼 ("red-whisker, green-eye"), but the epithet 金髮碧眼 ("gold-hair, jade-eye") has historically often been used to describe people who (probably) had Western Eurasian genetic heritage. According to the common European understanding, "red-whisker, green-eye" would seem rather like a description of some Celtic people, whereas "gold-hair, jade-eye" seems like an epithet that would be much more appropriate for a Slavic or Germanic group. However, Chinese people (at least historically) did not make a clear distinction between "red hair" and "golden (i.e., blond) hair," and the linguistic distinction between "green" and "blue" is also a rather recent invention in most of the world's languages, including Chinese, so it is often impossible to tell whether a particular historical quotation was referring to a thing that would be labeled as "green" or rather to a thing that would be labeled as "blue" according to our modern understanding. Ebizur 17:56, 15 November 2006 (UTC)
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