Gweilo

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Cantonese term for white people

title: "Gweilo" type: doc version: 1 created: 2026-02-28 author: "Wikipedia contributors" status: active scope: public tags: ["anti-western-sentiment", "boxer-rebellion", "chinese-slang", "cantonese-words-and-phrases", "culture-of-hong-kong", "pejorative-terms-for-european-people", "racism-in-china", "xenophobia-in-asia", "discrimination-in-hong-kong"] description: "Cantonese term for white people" topic_path: "sports" source: "https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gweilo" license: "CC BY-SA 4.0" wikipedia_page_id: 0 wikipedia_revision_id: 0

::summary Cantonese term for white people ::

::data[format=table title="Infobox Chinese"]

FieldValue
c鬼佬
pguǐlǎo
jgwai2 lou2
ygwái-lóu
gdguei2 lou2
::

|c=鬼佬 |p=guǐlǎo |j=gwai2 lou2 |y=gwái-lóu |gd=guei2 lou2 Gweilo or zh (, pronounced ) is a common Cantonese slang term for white people. The term can be literally translated as "ghoul man" or "ghost man" and has a history of racially deprecatory and pejorative use, though its modern usage is often in a general and non-derogatory context. The appropriateness of the term and whether it constitutes as an offensive ethnic slur are disputed among both Cantonese speakers and Westerners.

Etymology and history

Gwái (鬼, gui in Mandarin) means "ghoul”, "ghost" or "devil", and lóu (佬) means "man" or "guy". The literal translation of gwáilóu would thus be "ghoul man" or “ghost man". It is sometimes translated into English as "foreign devil". In many Sinitic languages, 鬼 gwai and its local equivalents can be a derogatory term used as a curse or an insult. The term 鬼 gwai has also been used to describe other ethnic groups, for example, a 17th-century writer from Canton, , wrote that Africans "look like ghouls", and gwáinòuh () was once used to describe African slaves.

Usage

The term gwái (鬼) is an adjective that can be used to express hate and deprecation, an example being the locals' expression of their hatred towards the Japanese during their occupation of Hong Kong in World War II with the same gwái. It conveys a general bad and negative feeling but is a somewhat obsolete and archaic/old-fashioned term nowadays and other more modern terms have largely replaced gwái for similarly negative meanings. Cantonese people sometimes call each other sēui gwái (衰鬼), which means bad person, though more often than not it is applied affectionately, similar to "Hey, bitch!" in English when used affectionately. Nowadays, Cantonese speakers often refer to non-Chinese people by their ethnicity.

Gwáilóu is often considered to be an acceptable generic racial term for Westerners. Also, some members of the Hong Kong community with European ancestry (particularly those with limited or zero Cantonese fluency) are indifferent to the term, and those who believe that the best way to defang a word intended as a "slur" is to embrace it, and use gweilo to refer to non-Chinese in Hong Kong. Gwailóu has, in some instances, been recognised as simply referring to white foreigners in South East Asia and now appears on Oxford Dictionaries defined as such, although non-white foreigners are not gwáilóu. While gwáilóu is used by some Cantonese speakers in informal speech, another alternative term the sound of which has several meanings sāi yàhn () is now used as well, particularly if the conversation involves a non-Chinese person. Homonyms - ie words that sound the same or almost the same depending on the tone - to sai yan include references to female genitalia or boasting so sai yan is not necessarily a polite alternative to gwai lou. A neutral alternative would be ‘foreign person’, pronounced ngoi gwok yan.

CFMT-TV in Toronto, Canada had a cooking show named Gwai Lo Cooking (1999) hosted by a Cantonese-speaking European chef, who was also the show's producer and the person who named the show. According to CFMT-TV, Gwai Lo was used as "a self-deprecating term of endearment". In response to some complaints, the Canadian Broadcast Standards Council ruled that:

Related terms

Gwai is one of a number of terms to referring to non-Chinese people that can be considered controversial and potentially offensive; a list of such terms is given below:

  • gwaijai (鬼仔; ) for a white boy.
  • gwaimui (鬼妹; ) for a white girl.
  • gwaipo (鬼婆; ) for white woman.
  • baakgwai (白鬼; ) for white people.
  • haakgwai (黑鬼; ) for black people.
  • sai yan (西人; ) for Westerners.
  • yeung yan (洋人; ) for Westerners.
  • ngoigwok yan (外國人; ) for foreign nationals.
  • acha (阿差; ; from "acchā" meaning "good" in Hindi) for South Asians. This term is considered offensive to South Asians local to Hong Kong, e.g., Hong Kong locals of Indian and/or Pakistani descent, and is not widely used.
  • molocha (摩囉差; ) for South Asians.

Mandarin Chinese

::figure[src="https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/9/97/Boxerspamphlet.png" caption="A [[Boxer Rebellion]] pamphlet, circa 1899, that refers to foreigners as ''guizi''."] ::

Guizi (鬼子; ) is a Mandarin Chinese slang term for foreigners, and has a long history of being used as a racially deprecating insult.

  • Riben guizi (日本鬼子; ) or dongyang guizi (東洋; ) – used to refer to Japanese.
  • Er guizi (二鬼子; ) – used to refer to the Korean soldiers who were a part of the Japanese army during the Sino-Japanese War in World War II.
  • Yang guizi (洋鬼子; ) or xiyang guizi (西洋; ) – used to refer to Westerners.

However, xiaogui (小鬼; ) is a common term in Mandarin Chinese for a child. Therefore, some argue that gui (鬼) in Mandarin is just a neutral word that describes something unexpected or hard to predict.

Laowai (老外; ) is the word most commonly used for foreigners and is a less pejorative term than guizi. Although laowai literally means "old foreigner", depending on context, "old" can be both a term of endearment and one of criticism.

References

References

  1. Yu, Irene. (7 November 2006). "MP shouldn't generalize". Richmond News.
  2. Brown, Jules. Gardner, Dinah. ''Hong Kong and Macau'', 2002. Rough Guides publishing. {{ISBN. 978-1-85828-872-7. p. 399
  3. "鬼". MDBG.
  4. Patrick J. Cummings. (2011). "A Dictionary of Hong Kong English: Words from the Fragrant Harbor". Hong Kong University Press.
  5. Lafayette De Mente, Boyé. (2000). "The Chinese Have a Word for It: The Complete Guide to Chinese Thought and Culture". [[McGraw-Hill Professional.
  6. Judith T. Zeitlin. (2007). "The Phantom Heroine: Ghosts and Gender in Seventheenth-century Chinese Literature". University of Hawaii Press.
  7. Zhidong Hao. (2011). "Macau History and Society". Hong Kong University Press.
  8. David Leffman. (2009). "The Rough Guide to Hong Kong & Macau". Rough Guides.
  9. D'Souza, Ajay. "SBS Radio – I'm on the radio again! » Cantonese.hk: The views and experiences of an Australian learning Cantonese".
  10. "gweilo – definition of gweilo in English – Oxford Dictionaries".
  11. [http://www.cbsc.ca/english/decisions/2000/000809appendix.pdf Appendix to 'CFMT-TV re ''Gwai Lo Cooking'' '] {{webarchive. link. (28 May 2008, CBSC Decision 99/00-0220. Decided 6 July 2000)
  12. [http://www.cbsc.ca/english/decisions/2000/000809.php "CFMT-TV re ''Gwai Lo Cooking''"], {{webarchive. link. (7 August 2011, CBSC Decision 99/00-0220. Decided 6 July 2000)
  13. Yip, Virginia. (2001). "Intermediate Cantonese: A Grammar and Workbook". Routledge.
  14. Patrick J. Cummings. (2011). "A Dictionary of Hong Kong English: Words from the Fragrant Harbor". Hong Kong University Press.
  15. [http://dangshi.people.com.cn/BIG5/16632423.html 第一滴血──從日方史料還原平型關之戰日軍損失 (6)] {{Webarchive. link. (3 February 2014. [[People's Daily]]. 16 December 2011)

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anti-western-sentimentboxer-rebellionchinese-slangcantonese-words-and-phrasesculture-of-hong-kongpejorative-terms-for-european-peopleracism-in-chinaxenophobia-in-asiadiscrimination-in-hong-kong