A friend of ours, Neil from Hong Kong, had quite the interesting post office experience in Mong Kok this morning.
He was standing in line, minding his own business, when a woman approached him and said, “Fucking white man is pig, you steal and you need to return the loot to its original owner.”
Utterly flabbergasted, Neil — who is, by the way, one of the coolest, nicest people we know — pulled out his camera phone and began recording. “Return the loot to its original owner,” the woman says, followed by:
“American, fucking pig.
“British, fucking pig.
“Spanish, fucking pig.
“Italian, fucking pig.
“German, fucking pig.
“Canadian, fucking pig.
“Australian, fucking pig.
“Austrian, fucking pig.
“Russian, fucking pig.
“Ukrainian, fucking pig.
“French, fucking pig.
“Spanish, oh, fucking pig.
“South American, fucking pig.
“Romania, fucking pig.
“Norwegian, fucking pig.
“Hungarian, fucking pig.”
And then she launches into a fuck song to the tune of Mary Had a Little Lamb.
She calls Neil a “gwailo” (pejorative, white person). Near the two-minute mark amid this incredible torrent of profanity, she says, “He’s taking my picture, with his phone. Can you report him to police?” Then she returns to the fuck song, and finally says, “He has his rights, I have my rights, I know he is taking my picture…”
Neil’s voice can then be heard asking her in Cantonese if she’s happy now, and he adds that she is being rude.
“I’ve never experienced anything like this and honestly I feel bad because the lady must have some mental problems,” Neil wrote on the YouTube video’s description.
“Racism sucks, no matter who you are or where you’re from. Don’t be racist.”
UPDATE, 2:44 pm: Okay, we couldn’t help it. We isolated the woman’s fuck song:
See? I knew that the Swedes and Fins are alright.
BTW, “gwailo” is much more insulting than just “white person”.
Appended “pejorative.”
“pejorative” is racist!
Thank God! I am Dutch. So no fucking pig. Amen.
Funny thing is though, she’s right.
Well, she’s right about the Germans at least.
Jesus cock sucking christ on a stick! Making fun of a mentally ill woman.
Never met Neil but he sounds like a real nancy boy.
Is she mentally ill? Maybe.
Rude, certainly.
Jesus cock sucking on a stick. LOL. I like this quote.
That’s funny, when I was harassed by a middle-aged racist lady in HK ten years ago she also had the sunglasses-facemask-hat look going. It’s like some kind of crazy person uniform.
Lady, do you know how many of your people come to Australia for better living? jezuz.
Such openly racist behaviour is in fact common in Hong Kong these days, and this person seems less aggressive than many.
“Gwailo” means “foreign devil”, and is the preferred term of much of the population.
I feel sorry for the poor Romanians out there…
Haha. What? My Canto isn’t so good, but I’m pretty sure she said, “Thanks for the Legal system, Education system, the Health Plan and you know, Religion. God save us from the Chinese.”
The notion of HKers being bitter towards Foreign Devils is so ridiculous it’s comedic.
Hahahaha.
I’m no fan of the term gwailo but there are two syllables there and I don’t think either of them mean ‘foreign’. Perhaps ‘devil man’ would be more accurate as you can’t call a woman ‘gwailo’.
Robert
Robert, Translation of fixed expressions like “hot dog” or “I’m afraid that …” can never be literal: it’s better to translate the meaning as well as the words.
You’re right, “gwai” means “devil”, but “lo” doesn’t mean “man”, as you claim.
The real point is that “gwailo” is used, not about real devils, but about “foreigners”, on the basis of their skin colour — hence the better translation of “foreign devil”.
Robert, Translation of fixed expressions like “hot dog” or “I’m afraid that …” can never be literal: you have to translate the meaning as well as the words.
You’re right, “gwai” means “devil”, but “lo” doesn’t mean “man”, as you claim.
The real point is that “gwailo” is used, not about real devils, but only about white people — hence the better translation as “foreign devils”.
Can never be literal? I thought Cantonese for hot dog was yit gau? That sounds pretty literal to me. The trouble with using a free translation in the case of gwailo is that for those that have no idea they will start believing that one of these syllables means foreign. But I take your point that it’s only used towards foreigners..
As for lo, ok it doesn’t mean man. I usually translate it as bloke. My usually objection to the lo bit when I complain about gwailo is that Chinese are tongyan or junggwokyan – human beings – whereas we’re just lo – if you’re an older male, the same suffix used in the slang word for homosexual or madman.
Yiht gau and other foreign calques are viewed with horror by many Chinese linguists, as adulterating the language. Any beginners’ translation manual will tell you that a literal translation is often a bad translation. And arguing from unknowledgeable people misinterpreting is not much of an argument. So I still think my translation, which respects the meaning and spirit of the original Chinese, is more accurate than yours, despite your claim.
Having said that, we seem to be in agreement on the essential. Yes, the problem with lo is that it implies that non-Chinese are subhuman, unpersons, not part of the human race.
I would concede that these terms are not necessarily used maliciously (apart from the woman in the PO, reflection of an increasing trend). But if they were used in English for minorities in the US, the scandal would never end.
What else are you going to call a hot dog? Though I still find gaimei weird as the word for cocktail.
If the English in Hong Kong were cleaning toilets instead of running banks they’d be punching anyone calling them gwai.
We’re in agreement over the literal translation thing. Of course if you were translating a book you’d have to use foreign devil.
I just thought that in the nature of the post it’s more informative for those that don’t know to break down the two syllables.
Often Chinese claim it’s not offensive – I’ve had others say – look at what you did during the Opium War, of course you’re gwai.
I know this woman! She wanders around Mongkok cursing at every foreigner she sees. She thought I was Pakistani and started screaming at me to “eat a Fxxxing pig”.