The informal Chinese word for white people is "Lao Wai" which literally translates as "old foreign" (the formal word for foreigners is Wai gou Ren (foreign country person)). The explanation I was given for the informal word is that it means "the old foreigners, as in the ones we've known about since antiquity."
Lao is often use as a colloquial form of respect. So “ba” means “father”, so “lao ba” is kind of like “my old man”. “Lao ban” (ban meaning business owner / boss) is “boss”. Wives might call their husband “lao gong”. I think “jiu4” is old as in the opposite of new (xin1), as in Jiujinshan (San Francisco, literal, old gold mountain).
Yes, but "lao wai" is not actually a particularly respectful usage of "lao". It's usually said with the intent of excluding someone, which is inherently not a respectful thing to do. Respectful uses of "lao" are not used to exclude someone from the group.
If it is absolutely necessary to refer to someone's exclusion for logistical (e.g. visa, legal) reasons the usual way to say it is 外國人，外籍人，外賓, the latter of which is usually the most formal and respectful.
I have read that 旧金山 originated as the term for the mountain of silver the foreigners who came to trade silver for silk must have had somewhere. (They did have such a mountain - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cerro_Rico ) "Gold" is, in this analysis, just a more respectful way to refer to silver.
I'm curious when and how the name might have attached itself to San Francisco, which is not near Potosí.
My experience living in Taiwan is that those terms may literally mean foreigner but their practical usage means white/western people. A native or black american would not be called that. Also, lao wai is the one they go for when they are angry or postering xenophobia amongst each other. I find it to be a needlessly othering term but I try to accept it as not said with explicitly bad intent.
The best summary of the word that I've seen is that its a lot like "gringo". Its status as pejorative or descriptive or even endearing depends on how it's said and the context in which it is said and on the person saying it. World of difference between "ey gringo, since when you drink tecate" and "what you doing in our neighborhood gringo".
Well, the traditional insult is quite different, 洋鬼子. ("Foreign devils" is the traditional translation.) People who are looking to insult foreigners have no need to use the ordinary, non-insulting word.
Though this may be less true in Taiwan; I think 洋鬼子 is fairly Maoist.
But generally you're missing the point. (1) 老外 (lao wai) is an intrinsically othering term, and (2) it's generally applied by race rather than by national origin. It doesn't matter what the literal translation is. The point is about how the word is used.
Here in California many Chinese-speaking transplants use the terms 老外 or 外國人 to refer to white Americans. I always correct them when they do--pointing out that they are the foreigners. It comes off as rude, but that's the point! No one likes to be ostracized or grouped based on the color of their skin, and that's precisely what they were doing when they used the term to refer to white people in the first place.
If I move my life to China or Taiwan, how long do I have live there before I am no longer 老外? What about my kids who grow up there, speaking at a native level and calling the country their home. Are they 老外 too?
> many Chinese-speaking transplants use the terms 老外 or 外國人 to refer to white Americans. I always correct them when they do--pointing out that they are the foreigners.
Consistent with this, do you also insist that they refer to the USA as "中國"?
My history may be off, but I believe that the Chinese named their country 中國 because they believed themselves the center of the world. Much like how the Romans named the Mediterranean (which means “middle sea”). The primary meaning of 中 is “middle” and it gains the meaning of “inside” by the geometric implication of the insides of something being that thing’s middle.
中國人 is a specific term of nationality. Likewise with 美國人. But 外國人 is different—it is defined only in relation to something else, as The Other. That’s fine in the context of passport control where your nationality matters, and you need to be in the foreigner line. But it’s not okay when we all live together in the same country, speaking the same language and with our kids in the same class in school, and you still refer to me as The Foreigner. Do you see the difference?
Interestingly, A LOT of mainlanders don’t know to line up in the 外國人 line when they go through Taiwan’s passport control, and they get upset when they are told to switch. It happens literally every time I’m in the airport (at least pre-pandemic). I don’t know if this is a dialectical, cultural, or propaganda problem, but it seems related.
> My history may be off, but I believe that the Chinese named their country 中國 because they believed themselves the center of the world.
Your history is off; the term is very old and does not even originally refer to all of China. It's also the name of a small, non-central part of Japan.
> Interestingly, A LOT of mainlanders don’t know to line up in the 外國人 line when they go through Taiwan’s passport control, and they get upset when they are told to switch.
I think they have a point here; putting mainlanders in the 外國人 line would seem to be an explicit contravention of the One China Policy.
Rome/Constantinople and China definitely knew about each other through trade relations, and I'd guess it's quite likely that some individuals made the whole trip along the silk road long before Marco Polo:
No, GP heard some folsky etymology. Lǎowài does not mean ancient foreigner. One of 老 lǎo's meanings is an honorific like "old / venerable." 老伯 lǎobó uncle, 老闆 lǎobǎn boss, 老師 lǎoshī teacher, are all honorifics that don't mean really mean "old" (except for uncle, which you can use to address a man older than yourself, but doesn't mean he's from ancient times). 老人 lǎorén does mean "old people" but just regular old, not ancient old. 老外 lǎowài just means outsider.
古 gǔ means ancient, like 古人 gǔrén is ancient people. You could construct phrases to mean ancient foreigners, modern immigrants, modern foreign people, etc. but I don't know of any that would carry more special meaning than equivalent phrases in English.
