Venerable outsider, indeed
8 May 2005
老外 (laowai) is not a term of respect. Anyone who’s lived in China knows this. It’s roughly equivalent in tone and meaning to angmoh-gwee (red-haired devil), Singapore’s favourite term for Caucasian foreigners.
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Your entry reminded me of a funny story. My brother briefly dated a Chinese girl when he was in high school. My dad had just bought him a motorcycle to drive to school so my dad would not have to drive my brothers everywhere. When my dad got the helmet, he had one of his co-workers who was Chinese write "bock wei doi" (young white devil) on it in big letters as a joke warning to the girls father.
Comment by Terry — 9 May 2005 @ 2:36 am
Heh. Did you get one, too?
Comment by Andrea — 9 May 2005 @ 9:06 am
I used it as a hand me down when my brother bought his own. I was not driving a motorcycle when I was with the Asian GF. I have an all black helmet now for when I race my car at the SCCA autocrosses.
Oh, the pronuncination is for Cantonese, not Mandarin. I may have a pic of the helmet somewhere if you are interested.
Comment by Terry — 9 May 2005 @ 12:54 pm
It's like when they called me "healthy" and I thought they were being nice…but they really meant "You FAT BASTARD"
Comment by TuTu — 9 May 2005 @ 7:01 pm