from portrait of an LBX

Speaking of laowai, that’s the other word that gets our goat. Laowai — along with dialectical equivalents: lowei, waigolo, gueilo, etc. — means “foreigner,” but it is the slang way of saying it compared with the proper term waiguoren (compare the word “Paki” for “Pakistani” or the French slang “ricain”, semi-derogatory shortening of the formal demonym “américain”). Just about every Chinese in the country will shout this out from either pure stupefaction at seeing us or just to let everybody know what’s coming through town (imagine the scene from Blazing Saddles when the town drunk is screaming, “the new sheriff’s a ni**er!”). I’ve tried explaining to countless Chinese why we don’t like it when people shout laowai out in front of our faces. We know we’re different, that we come from somewhere else, that our eyes and noses and hair and whatever other parts don’t look like theirs — we know all of that very, very well, and when we’re trying to initiate contact with a new person, the last thing we want is for them to turn to their buddies laughing and say “laowai” as though a stray dog had just started talking. Every time I explain why this irks us, they just give me blank faces and say, “but that’s just the word we use for you… we don’t mean anything by it.” I suppose they, coming from one of the world’s most insular societies, have absolutely no idea what this must feel like, and rationally this shouldn’t be a problem for smart people like Andy and me. But hearing it thirty times a day, in addition to all the other stupid jeers, just really wears us thin, especially when we’re tired or in a bad mood (see above). I do suppose that if you went back a hundred years, before there was any idea of political correctness or courtesy for people who look *different*, and asked even an educated, open-minded man in the American South why he used the word, “ni**er” to refer to black people, he probably would have responded, “well, that’s just the word we use for ‘em… we don’t mean nothin’ by it.” Maybe when my grandkids come to China, things will be different. Until then, we grind our teeth and bear it.

from a thread on the something awful forums

uick question, how does everyone feel about this word? I personally got no issue with it in the slightest and use it to refer to myself or other foreigners all the time. However, in recent months I’ve met more and more people (usually Chinese-literate-just-outta-college kids) who feel all offended by it.

One girl I work with (Actually the same one I mentioned earlier about the IN AMERICA WE DO IT THIS WAY thing) was all pissed when she heard our place’s boss boasting(?) to some dude about how she had about 30 “laowais” working for her. She was all, “Why doesn’t she just use “外国人!” I personally see laowai as a more colloquial but more or less un-pejorative term for 外国人.

I’m not personally offended by it, my friends refer to me as a laowai. My boss, who lived in Beijing for a number of years seems to think it’s offensive though. He prefers wàiguó rén. I think maybe in bigger cities it has generated a negative connotation but here in a relatively remote southern boom town, where foreigners have rarely been seen before, laowai seems like the defacto term and I don’t take offense. Maybe it’s like a black/African American thing?

That’s pretty much my feeling on it. Laowai has pejorative connotations but when most people use it I don’t think they mean to include those.

Of course, China isn’t that far along with the whole “racism is bad” thing and you do probably run into more people using it in a nasty or superior way, and there’s a little bit of difference (probably superiority) built into the way Chinese people talk about race anyway (white people, black people, red people, yellow TYPE people…) so maybe it’s a little worse than “black / African American” but this is all pretty nebulous anyway and really if I had to choose I’d say go ahead and keep calling me a chalkie just stop doing the farmer blow on the sidewalk in front of my apartment and I’ll call it even.

as for the laowai thing… yea, i went through a phase where i didn’t like it, but meh, bitch all you want its never going to change… might as well embrace it.

From a chat where I asked about differences:

老外 is more 口语
外国人 is more formal
Also
老外 is probably used to refer to white people
外国人 is more neutural
neutral

Also, I just asked on quora.

I’m guessing that for the young educated adults of the sixties and seventies, for whom the ultimate horror was the hypocritical conformity and repression of their own parents’ generation, Updike’s evection of the libidinous self appeared refreshing and even heroic. But young adults of the nineties – many of whom are, of course, the children of all the impassioned infidelities and divorces Updike wrote about so beautifully, and who got to watch all this brave new individualism and sexual freedom deteriorate into the joyless and anomic self-indulgence of the Me Generation – today’s subforties have very different horrors, prominent among which are anomie and solipsism and a peculiarly American loneliness: the prospect of dying without having loved something more than yourself. Ben Turnbull, the narrator of Updike’s latest novel, is sixty-six years old and heading for just such a death, and he’s shitlessly scared. Like so many of Updike’s protagonists, though, Turnbull seems scared of all the wrong things.

She flipped open the book and read the blurb about the author aloud “Miranda July is a filmmaker, performing artist, and writer… her first feature film Me and You and Everyone We Know (2005)“. (imdb)

I asked if I could borrow the book.

It was a quick read, it’s a collection of short stories and none of them taken individually take a long time to read. A few passages and fragments here and there caught my attention so I’m going to collect those here for my own sake.

The Shared Patio

“What is the most terrifying thing that has ever happened to you? Did it involve a car? Was it on a boat? Did an animal do it? If you answered yes to any of these questions, then I am not surprised. Cars crash, boats sink, and animals are just scary. Why not do yourself a favor and stay away from these things?”

“If you are sad, ask yourself why you are sad. Then pick up the phone and call someone and tell him or her the answer to the question.”

“It’s not your fault. Perhaps this was really the only thing I had ever wanted to say to anyone, and be told.”

Ten True Things

“I laughed and said, Life is easy. What I meant was, Life is easy with you here, and when you leave, it will be hard again.”

The Man on the Stairs

“I also imagined friends who adored me. These friends think I’m a drag. I fantasize about starting over and eliminating the film of dragginess that hangs over me. I think I have a handle on it now; there are three main things that make me a drag:

I never return phone calls.
I am falsely modest.
I have a disproportionate amount of guilt about these two things, which makes me unpleasant to be around.

It wouldn’t be so hard to return calls and be more genuinely modest, but it’s too late for these friends. They wouldn’t be able to see that I’m not a drag anymore. I need clean new people who associate me with fun. This is my number two problem: I am never satisfied with what I have.”

The Sister

“Men alone often have one or two large things wrong with them, but these are things that the brothers think their sisters should be able to live with. An example of such a problem is: still being in love with one’s deceased wife. This wasn’t my problem; I had never been in love with anyone, dead or alive.”

It Was Romance

“… these distinctions are like shackles.”

“I walked down the hall and saw that Theresa was sitting on the floor next to a chair. This is always a bad sign. It’s a slippery slope, and it’s best just to set in chairs, to eat when hungry, to sleep and rise and work. But we have all been there. Chairs are for people, and you’re not sure if you are one.”

Something that Needs Nothing

“We were anxious to begin our life as people who had no people.”

“It is terrible to have to ask for anything ever. We wish we were something that needed nothing, like paint. But even paint needs repainting.”

“My mind slows down to a rate that would not be considered functional for any other job. I am alive only one out of every four seconds, I register only fifteen minutes out of the hour.”

“There was no way I could ever be in love with her because she was just as pathetic as me.”

“We were always getting away with something, which implied that someone was always watching us, which meant we were not alone in this world.”

“It was a scam. There was nothing in the world that was not a con, suddenly I understood this. Nothing really mattered, and nothing could be lost.”

“I had once believed in a precious inner self, but now I didn’t. I had thought that I was fragile, but I wasn’t.”

Making Love in 2003

“I wondered if I would spend the rest of my life inventing complicated ways to depress myself, “

Occasionally though I’ll come across a comment such as this one:

“This song brings back a lot of memories for me. Back when I lived in the dorms at school there was this girl who would wake me up early every Saturday morning to do laundry with her. I would drag myself all hungover, down to the laundry room. She would bring her boom box and listen to music and dance as we did our laundry. This was one of her favorite songs. It moved me to see this girl dance and sing so early in the morning, so happy. It still moves me, it makes me happy inside, I miss doing that with her so much.”

And then I’ll wonder what happened to this guy? (I assume it’s a guy, I don’t know that it is.) What happened to the girl? Given that I am looking at comments on the internet, is this the wistful regrets of somebody over something they wish they had done in college and this song is a persistent reminder of that? But surely that can’t be it because it’s a positive memory that remains. Am I projecting my own regrets on to this anonymous internet person? Only a little.

as far as the amount of spread, my personal opinion is that asshole ibankers and/or brits spread it too much, but that middle america spreads it too little

I don’t miss where I came from
But each night I dream about being back home
When I wake up in the morning
I’m too tired, tired of being alone

first, we put in some random thoughts
then we add a little bit of reminiscences of the day
mixed with some memories from the past (that’s for two people)
love, friendships, relationships, and all those ships
together with songs you heard through the day, things you saw, and
also some personal…

From the opening scene of The Science of Sleep

I didn’t like walking in Beijing very much either.

Berkeley and San Francisco both were nice to walk though.

Hmm, I will make a list.

1. Boston
2. New York
3. Berkeley
4. San Francisco
5. Chicago [1]
6. Philadelphia
7. Washington, DC
8. Shanghai
9. Beijing

Notes:

[1]: Chicago would probably would be higher if I didn’t spend nearly all my time there in Hyde Park.

Hmm not sure if I want to put Boston or New York on top, still.

I think that covers the cities I’ve been walking around in the last few years. If I think of any more I’ll update the list then.

post title cribbed from this list of quotes about walking

One quote that I caught:

a: Do you ever want to go back?
b: To Oxford? I’m not not clever enough. I’m not anything enough, really.

Clementine Gallot, a journalism student in NYC corresponded with me via email a little while ago, and this appears to be the article written about some foie gras business in NYC that it was all about.

The specific quote is

Russell Stadler, ancien étudiant de l’Université de Chicago, les soutient: « Je pense personnellement n’avoir pas besoin d’une loi pour consommer ou non du foie gras, c’est mon choix personnel. Cette interdiction à Chicago a non seulement eu peu d’effets mais apparaît à tout le monde, rétrospectivement, comme une erreur ». Depuis peu, la municipalité et le maire de Chicago pensent même à abroger la loi.

which I have no idea what it means because I don’t know French.

Google Language Tools gives the following translation:

Russell Stadler, old studied University of Chicago, supports them: “I personally think of not needing not a law to consume or not foie gras, it is my personal choice. This prohibition in Chicago had not only few effects but appears with everyone, retrospectively, like an error�?. Recently, the municipality and the mayor of Chicago even think of repealing the law.

This is mostly right, strange automatic-translation errors aside, so I’m not going to bother going to find the exact original wording in English.

I wonder where this intended for and if I could get it in China.