Adoua really gets to me but laowai, unless it is repeated three times with a laugh, doesn’t. I’ve had a lot of run ins since my children were born because the insults happened in front of them- before that I couldn’t be bothered. Who cared? Since I now have two little ones I’ve done some crazy things to get back at the racists and although I feel better, my family doesn’t. This leaves me in the nasty position of letting it ride, which really pisses me off (I’ll always lay into any butthead), or doing something that embarrasses the wife and pods, like feeling up the teenager on the MRT who rubbed my leg and deemed it ‘furry’- I returned the favor in front of my family and deemed it ‘smooth.’ I now regret it but I was angry. Where does one go?
That Columbus…what a schmuck…
I have indeed incorporated adoga into my everyday patter to refer to both you and I…it gets lots of laughs and an opportunity to discuss this very thread should time and other circumstances allow…my students get very excited to assure me that it is not derogatory…I care less about that as I am getting even the freshest of speakers to actually speak :shock: …but it does get my goat when I am sitting at a light and a couple of hip scooter suits point and shout it out and laugh…I reel at the ignorance…
There have been a couple of good suggestions here for retorts…xiao dee dee I really like…but I’ll save that for when I am already near the edge…(which, so far, has not even appeared on the horizon from this smoky atoll…I think the edge is way back there in Can’t-ada) My tolerance level has gone way up since immigrating here…I am seemlingly bulletproof to the “inconveniences” or “differences” that would have sent me into a horn-blasting, fist-pounding, invective-hollering, semi-maniacal road-type rage if I was having one of those days back the other side of the pond…now I shrug at worst and play it up with whomever has the “yonchi” to look my way…
Mayo Wenti…Ma Ma Lai…Wu Wei and on with the day…
I’d like to learn the Taiwanese for “un-raised nose bridge” so that I could return this un-offensive name calling appropriately the next time someone points me out by referring to the angle of my nose.
I don’t get upset by those terms. I think it is a good thing not to worry about little stuff. :s
Yup. Some people are ignorant fucktards, but I sure as hell don’t lose any sleep over it.
my boss still refers to me when talking to others in taiwanese as “the adoga”…ignorant fucktard is about right…imagine if he went to an overseas exhibition and people on a booth kept referring to him as “the ch**k over there”??
edit: ooh ooh; thats some clever software innit…but how can we discuss racist terms if the software censors them…no fair no fair
I don’t think those terms are used in a racist way in the way Westerners might think of the concept. I think people who use such terms are just ignorant fuckwits who are too benighted to know any better.
Nope, laowai doesn’t offend me. Adoua does in some cases, depends on the spirit in which it is used (only one person called me that, but it was in a good natured ribbing kinda way).
As far as words ending in -ese being derrogatory…in a word, hawgwarsh…
What worse is when it is you SPOUSE 
(just kidding). I do seriously agree. I’m finding that logic is definitely something that oughtta be taught formally (and have considered offering Saturday morning basic logic classes at my school). As one who LOVED the two university logic classes 'e took, I get rather irate when basic logic is not used (if A=B and B=C and C=Q then Q does NOT equal where’s my pork bun :fume: ).
I feel offended by these words because I was brought up in a culture where it was considered a big no-no to refer to other people by their obvious physical traits. There is nothing wrong, for example, with saying the term “African American” in an appropriate context, but you couldn’t excitedly point to every one you saw in America and shout “African American African American!” You also can’t casually refer to people as “fatty” or “old bag” and also be polite.
It isn’t the term itself, it is how it is used. I can walk down the streets of my hometown safe in the assumption that no one is going to point at me and make comments about my appearance; I can’t in Taiwan.
Somebody once posted the words “moh2 bee3 yah4” as a comeback to the word “Attogah”. It means “flat nose”. I was talking about this word to my co-worker, so I could get the right pronunciation, and she understood it just fine – made her laugh.
Those numbers are the approximate equivalent of the tones of Mandarin (I don’t speak Taiwanese). I’ve not yet tried this response to a hostile speaker, so…if you do, post the followup!
I still don’t think I’ve heard “a to ga” Am I just tuning out?
I don’t mind “waiguoren” or “meiguoren” or laowai" if it is said without pointing. What I don’t get is how 3 year old children know this word.
I have had an old man say “lao wai” repeatedly as i walked past. This happened for about a week, until I finally smiled at him, waved and said hello. From then on he never said it again and was always happy to see me.
On the subject of whether “-ese” is offensive, are people from Vienna offended when they are called “Viennese”? I am part Portuguese. Should I be offended? What about Milanese? Piedmontese? Maltese?
All of the above have to do with places in Europe. “-ese” is most certainly not a derogatory ending for Asian people. Not to mention Congolese, Senegalese, Sudanese, Surinamese, etc. Also note: Korean, Mongolian, Thai, Malaysian, Cambodian, Laotian, Singaporean; all having to do with eastern Asia, but do not have the “-ese” ending.
It comes from the Latin ending “-ensis”, and its equivalents are seen in Spanish “-es”, French “-ais” and “-ois”, and Italian “-ese”. Digging farther back into Indo-European roots, it’s related to English “-ish”, German “-isch”, Scandinavian “-sk” and Russian “-ski”.
As a Viennese, I am offended! 
Ah Dou A could be seen as a term of closeness as the Ah prefix connotates friendliness. A-Bian! I was told it is simply a translation of Lao Wai… Lao Wai… I sometimes use to rile up China born Taiwanese who have views i disagree with. It may be that Ah Dou A has been turned more negative by the elitist thinking in KMT Taiwan that somehow Taiwanese is a vulgar language.
Yes! I hate being served at a restaurant as “That foreigner over there”. I would actually scold them for it. I became a champion at this art. Or when they fought over who shoulkd have to help you while you are waiting…that is a different story.
I’d have to agree with the original poster that constantly being referred to, and sometimes mocked as a “foreigner” (laowai, or waigworen) gets very tedious after a while. But, that’s just Chinese culture - all about “us” and “them”. Even someone like Poagao will always be a waigworen to just about every local person in Taiwan.
It’s funny when Taiwanese travel abroad and still refer to the locals as waigworen.
Da-bitsu, and ah-do-ah can sound offensive when sneered at you on the street. Otherwise all of these expressions reflect the parochialism that comes with growing up in a mono-cultural, ethnically homogenous society. (And yes, I know that there are ethnic minorities in Taiwan - but I’d argue that the cultural influence of these groups on the mainstream is all but nil)
When I lived in East Africa, people were forever calling out “wazungu, wazungu (whiteman in kiswahili)” wherever I went. Very much as they do in rural China, with “waigworen”.
Well, next time you’re really pissed with an uncouth shout of “attogah,” you could always come back with “沒水準的台客”. Just hope that you’re a martial arts expert or carrying a really big aluminum baseball bat because them is fightin’ words … even worse if you tack on “你沒有家教” or “lin bei” (I’m your daddy) in Taiwanese.
I’ve found that dirty looks usually do the trick, though.
Yes, I’ve noticed this too, eavesdropping on conversations of Mandarin-speakers here in the US. And it’s not just Taiwanese, but mainland Chinese too. On a couple of occasions, I’ve said to them: “Wo shi bendiren. Nimen cai shi waiguoren.” (“I’m a local. It’s you who are the foreigners.”)
Unless it’s said with an obvious sense of mockery or a threatening tone, I don’t mind the terms “lao wai”, “waiguoren” or “Meiguoren”. I just see it as innocent curiosity or harmless cultural difference. Most westerners grow up in multicultural, diverse societies where it is considered impolite to refer to someone as “that Mexican” or “that Jew” or “that Irishman” or “that Italian”, etc., especially when such labels have historically been associated with suspicion or derision. Most Chinese grew up in more homogeneous societies where foreigners are few and far between, where the presence of a foreigner is something that piques one’s interest.
As for the annoyance of kids yelling out “Meiguoren” (and as an American I always wondered how they could know what my nationality was), I remember once, riding on my motorcycle in the hills in Nankang District of Taipei, a kid pointed to me and said to his mother: “Mama, ni kan! Yingguoren!”
Contrary to popular belief on this forum, wai4guo2ren2 does not really mean ‘foreigner’. It actually means ‘westerner’. Korean and Japanese, for example, are very, very rarely referred to as being wai4guo2ren2. So you are still a wai4guo2ren2 even if you are in your home country.
Waiguoren does not mean “Westerner”. Xifangren means Westerner. Waiguoren means anyone who is not Chinese. Malaysian Chinese in Malaysia are not waiguoren, nor are British Chinese in the UK. They are referred to by Taiwanese as Huaqiao, although many I have met dislike this term. Chinese people living in the UK I have spoken to have to make themselves clear using the term “waiguoren”, but when they talk about “waiguoren” it is often in reference to themselves (for example when discussing UK immigration law), or when talking about Westerners.
It is a difficult term, but it’s more a state of mind: all Chinese people are Zhongguren, and if you’re not you’re a Waiguoren. The fact that other Asians are referred to more accurately is a matter of geography, perhaps. Russians, after all, are still “waiguoren”. They’re hardly Westerners.