When most Chinese use the term laowai to refer to a foreigner or a group of foreigners, they do not mean to use it offensively or derogatively.
However, sometimes I still struggle to figure out how expatriates in China feel about being called laowai.
Several years ago, one of my colleagues, an American, told me he disliked the term because he thought laowai carried the connotation that expatriates are outsiders. An avid learner of the Chinese language, he thought wai could mean outside. In fact, the Chinese character wai in laowai is short for waiguoren, or foreigner. As wai has multiple meanings, it is subject to different interpretations depending on the context.
Lao, like Lao Chen or Lao Zhang when referring to a person surnamed Chen or Zhang respectively, is really a form of endearment. Many expats now regard laowai a jocular term. However, some expatriates may still feel uncomfortable when they are called laowai.
A recent court ruling in Hong Kong concerning a Cantonese expression for foreigner may shed some light on how such terms should be viewed.
Earlier this month, a Hong Kong court dismissed a HK$1 million (US$128,300) discrimination claim by a British engineer who complained about being called a gweilo and excluded from a construction project. The Hong Kong District Court found that poor work relationship with colleagues was the real reason he lost his job.
Francis William Haden, a British engineer who also has Australia citizenship, filed the lawsuit in 2018 to seek HK$1 million in damages and a written apology from Leighton Contractors (Asia) for alleged violation of the city's ordinance on racial discrimination, after he was sacked the previous year.
Gweilo, which literally translates to "ghost man," is widely used in Hong Kong and parts of Guangdong. It is generally considered benign although it was originally used disparagingly to mean "foreign devil."
In his complaint, Haden quoted a Leighton employee, who claimed that workers from China State Construction Engineering (Hong Kong) which formed a joint venture with Leighton for the tunnel project, had grumbled about the large number of "gweilos" at work. He argued the term displayed hostility towards expats.
The judge said gweilo was widely used in Hong Kong and could bear different connotations. However, there was no basis to suggest the use of gweilo in the workplace must entail racial hostility, the judge said.
To be frank, gwei originally carried a hostile connotation like the pinyin term yangguizi, or "foreign devils," which was used to refer to Western invaders who ravaged China since the Opium War. However, the slang gweilo has lost its "devilish" undertone over time. Some expats in the special administrative region like to call themselves "gweilo" as a self-deprecating humor. Most Westerners do not regard the slang offensive or racist in part because they have not been subjected to racial discrimination. During British rule, Westerners used to be a privileged group in the territory.
Unlike "gweilo," the term laowai is much less controversial. Even so, laowai is seldom used in official news stories in China. In most news stories and government documents, expatriates are referred to as waijirenshi (外籍人士), people of foreign nationalities, or guojiyouren (国际友人), international friends. Such terms are more polite but also more official and lengthy. Therefore they are not commonly used in daily conversations.
Controversies surrounding the term laowai or gweilo now present no big issue. What should worry us now is how people of a country view another country as conflicts in trade, technology and geopolitics bring increasing tensions to the world stage.
The people in China and the United States, two largest economies in the world, increasingly see the other country negatively. According to a recently released Pew Research report, 54 percent Americans saw China as a competitor, 35 percent as an enemy and 9 percent as a partner.
The results of a survey published by the University of California in January showed only 37 percent of Chinese viewed the United States favorably. This figure had declined 13 percentage points over the past six years.
However, even when countries are unable to get along well, we should display goodwill to those coming from another land for tourism, work and business. As a reminder to all of us, the famous Confucius quote "How happy we are to have friends from afar" has become part of the Chinese culture for more than 2,700 years.
(The author is a deputy editor-in-chief of the Shenzhen Daily.)