Does the boss use it?
Often the head of a company or group basically creates the group culture and everyone falls in line with it.
Correct, the boss was an ABC/Taiwanese guy who fostered that culture, although they have had multiple bosses. That’s why I couldn’t do shit about it because it comes from the top. Likely they barely registered that this is an unacceptable way to refer to colleagues.
You see a lot of it hidden behind the blanket of Chinese and unfortunately I understand Chinese too well.
no use in trying to be clever about it. you could even call taiwanese overseas wai guo ren, because they technically are. they wouldn’t get it…
How does adouga/adouga mbin factor in to this? Almost exclusively the olds using it, I guess. Ditto wagoulang, although that’s the same as waiguoren.
I think that has more to do with how the locals feel about “lao-” being a form of endearment. In Taiwan, it is much less common these days to give nicknames of “lao- + last name” to actual friends. Perhaps because the association with being older is no longer purely positive. Calling people you don’t actually know with the “lao-” endearment is considered pretentious in Taiwan these days.
So I would think it has more to do with how Mandarin has changed in Taiwan. It’s just in China, calling people “lao-” is still in fashion and can be considered respectful, and less so with younger Taiwanese.
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For the two years I lived in Japan, I have never heard anybody call me “gaikokujin.” Possibly “gaijin-san” a few times, which didn’t particularly offend me since it sounded like a kind of warm-hearted nickname. Mostly people remembered my name.
Once a kid on the street pointed the finger at me shouting “America-jin”, to which I replied “nope, I’m French” with a smile. No offense whatsoever.
I just took this whole “gaijin” thing as being part of living in a foreign country. That’s a level of “alienation” I can take, far less harmful than having the step of my door weekly painted with graffiti telling me to go home. But again, I grew up with everybody in France asking me where my accent came from, assuming I was a foreigner even though I was born in France. So that for me set the benchmark of what I can take.
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Wai guo ren doesn’t mean foreigner per se, it means white westerner. Especially American. They know they’re the foreigner abroad, it’s just that the term “foreigner” has stuck for white people.
yea its the local equivalent i guess. i just think a nickname like laowai or ado ah is more polite than a cold and formal “foreigner”
theres even a place in shanghai called lao wai street. so people obviously quite like the word.
This can also be used as a derogatory term, but I found that more in the north than the south.
Sometimes people use these words and others because they don’t know any others or what is correct. Better to just look at the context of the conversation and if they are being polite you can politely correct them.
I am a waiguoren even if I change my nationality, I can’t change my heritage.
I don’t know what other word people who don’t know me can use.
It reminds me of the debate about black, coloured, African origin, African American, etc. I’m never sure which one to use and if I use the wrong one just tell me. I’m not being racist, I’m just being confused by language and trying to be polite.
you cannot. wai guo ren means non-chinese. They have another word for taiwanese overseas. 外僑
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I have a dream, that one day, we’d all just be shuaige and meinu.
I cringe every time I get called that, and hopefully one day everyone can cringe about the same thing.
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I used to tell my parents that every time they referred to someone as Waiguoren in the US.
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I like being called shuai ge.
Until the next customer gets called shuai ge and he’s some fat, pimply guy with greasy glasses and blue slippers.
Then I don’t feel so shuai anymore.
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well no, technically it means foreigner. so if you wanted to be clever about it you could use it to refer to taiwanese when they were overseas.
Please enjoy that now because you won’t be called shuai ge forever . I have officially graduated to Lao ban these days , which could be worse I guess . 
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hey, that someone could be me.
nothing more awkward than a middle aged guy calling you handsome…
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Can you fix the quote please I didn’t say that, your quoting my quote of some one else and attributed it to me. I think it’s some sort of bug,
Now I have quoted you, quoting me, quoting someone else. Sounds like a song or something
Asking everyone to remember your name is a bit unfair. Even though they try. How many times can you remember their Chinese name?
They already take one step forward by picking a 外國 name because they know 外國人 can’t pronounce or remember their Chinese name.
Fixed, but other cycle-quotes have already began.