Does anyone care about being called Laowai?
敏感點 Is telling someone to go back to their own country because you don’t like their opinion. I agree their opinion is stupid, and it’s fine to call them stupid, but not to go back to their own country
2 Likes
I dont care about 老外that much now, it bothered me a lot in the beginning, circa 2004, you heard it every 3 minutes. in TW I’ve been called 外國人and 美國人，mostly by children or the elderly.
Polite store owners usually reffer to me as the 外國先生，which is the best in my opinion, since it describes reality in a polite way.
1 Like
Yeah 老外 is neutral. It all depends on the context.
I do get annoyed when people reply to you in English when you are speaking Chinese, that shit is fucking rude
1 Like
I don’t like it ,because it discriminates against people by the colour of their skin.
Many people who weren’t born in Taiwan moved here and live long term and some of them are citizens now.
Some of them grew up here.
Still call them laowai ? Just because of their skin color ? Just call them foreigners is respectful ? I don’t think it’s neutral because it’s pinning you to your skin colour and stating you are an outsider… a (white lookng ) foreigner.
Emphasising that fact.
That’s racist speak to me. Also the connotation of the word aren’t great, especially use of the word ‘wai’. It’s stating that they are outsiders, making people into outsiders .
**So what is a ‘Laowai’ who is a citizen or lives here many decades as a resident ? **
Should he/she be considered an outsider or a Taiwanese ?
What if they run for political office or get a local government job as a teacher or a police officer ? Should they still be called Laowai?
Is that respectful or the correct way to address that person ?
Notice it’s similar story with WaiLao as well. Personally I think it sucks and is an ignorant term based in racial prejudice lthough I mostly ignore it rather than dwell on it
3 Likes
I agree. Just because someone isn’t ethnically Han doesn’t mean they’re not Taiwanese. I know a few now adults who were born to SEA mothers here in Taiwan, and they always use Taiwanese to an almost excessive extent to make sure people see them for what they are – Taiwanese. If someone says “Chinese person” in the US about an Asian they see, that’s racist, because they might be Asian but not Chinese, or they might be born and raised in the US and don’t identify with their Chinese ethnicity because they weren’t raised in China – they are American. There are better ways to identify a person that doesn’t draw attention to their “other-ness”
Calling someone “laowai” emphasizes that they are an outsider – you’re literally calling them an “old outside person” by using the term. “Wailao” is even more unacceptable, because it says “you’re from somewhere else and serve only the purpose of being cheap labor and will never be accepted as anything else in our society” though it’s not as bad as “ah-lao”, which makes me cringe at the same level the n-word does in American English. Ethnically Han Taiwanese people doesn’t see it that way, probably because they are mostly Han Chinese and see anyone who isn’t Han (including the ethnic groups that were here for millennia before them) as “the other”. If Taiwan want’s to move into the 21st century, it can’t stay stuck in the 19th century with its language.
1 Like
I understand many people may not have a problem with the term laowai, they think it is cute or neutral etc. However I don’t think it neutral, some may embrace it as a badge of pride, but it is not neutral (the laowai uber guy… Laowai this…or that…to get media notoriety).
Whatever the feelings the fact is that a ‘laowai’ means a foreigner or white person . Who wants to be called a foreigner or a white person all the time in their adopted country ?
And the connotations of that feed into the division…That you aren’t really a Taiwanese person because you are a different skin color than the minority, and you automatically dont have full legal rights or understanding of society because you are a laiwai…a foreigner.
Also it’s really boring just to focus on somebody’s skin color all the time but I know many local people are obsessed with looks and putting people into neat little boxes. I don’t think the usage of the term laowai is anything compared to legal impediments to getting citizenship or the very poor treatment of migrants from South East Asia here but I do think it’s somewhat related.
3 Likes
This is a little off topic from the OP, but on topic for the recent direction of the thread.
When I got here I started frequenting two places which have good 蛋餅, enough so that they would recognize me and what I wanted. At one place they started calling me 老外, which I don’t like but I also don’t bother getting angry about. Once I had spent even more time there and spoken to the people about their jobs, life, pets, etc., they shifted to calling me 外國朋友. I don’t know how common this type of attitude is, just an anecdote.
At the other place the owner asked what she could call me. I told her my monosyllabic English name. She said that was too hard, and so I suggested 閔先生。 She said that was too hard and she suggested 老師。 I explained that I am a 律師，not a 老師，but she said that was too hard to remember. After a recent (1.5 years later) discussion (we often talk about the hot pepper markets in Taipei) she again asked me what she should call me. This time 閔先生 was not too hard. She was born and raised in Vietnam, but has been in Taiwan for over 20 years.
I have no big takeaways, just my experiences that seem relevant to the recent thrust of the thread.
5 Likes
老師 can be good, it’s not always teacher, can be master
It’s weird though that she wanted to pigeon hole him as a teacher and resisted other ideas. Some people really aren’t very smart though.
I remember telling my kids elementary school teacher I came from Europe etc etc.
Within two minutes she started back with ‘you in America…’ even when I had stated clearly I was not American. Stubborn.
3 Likes
For me the words are contextual, I don’t mind most of the time.
It’s more just the general grind of living in a monoculture and being a constant outsider, no matter how much you learn the language work to fit in.
The words don’t really bother me in the scheme of things. It’s the more passive aggressive stuff in the work environment. HR departments thinking foreigners shouldn’t get higher salaries. People thinking you are stupid or immoral because foreign.
4 Likes
I agree with this. Constant grind. Its why many long term resident foreigners here kind of give up making an effort at integrating cos it’s quite hard work and almost impossible for non East Asian looking people.
It’s really hard work. After years of work, I know how to behave in a Taiwanese office now, but I don’t see why that is something people would really want to learn how to do. It’s not like working in China, where the salaries are high and it makes sense to know when to shut up.
In the scheme of things, I find someone calling me ‘laowai’ in a coffee shop to be pretty harmless. In a work environment, Taiwanese can be full on passive aggressive spiteful.
Also I think this stuff is getting better. I always thought at the root of all this was an element of self-loathing and insecurity. Taiwan economy has just seen constant stagnation and decline for nearly three decades and people are constantly told that this place is shit and going nowhere. I think this created an underlying dissatisfaction and a sense that any foreigner wanting to live here must have something wrong with them. Taiwan was in stasis for so long
Now Taiwan economy is improving and money and people coming back from China. I feel that people are more confident in Taiwan and themselves and are becoming more open.
2 Likes
I enjoy being an outsider , as long as I get treated fairly in the legal sense, then what Ken and Karen thinks is irrelevant.
I don’t like being treated as an outsider at work. I don’t like me being an outsider as an excuse for passive aggressive bullshit. It’s just a total grind.
Outside of work I really don’t fucking care.
But you don’t mind treating people named Ken or Karen unfairly.
And scraping to earn a living by selling dan bing. I don’t see why she needs to call him anything that she wouldn’t call anyone else or why “Min Xiansheng” would be too hard for her, but it’s a pretty tough living.
Ok, I get that, but I was used to that in my country or origin. It has it’s up points too. Like not having to do some of the social norms. They pay you more as you are more valuable to the company.
Not true.
Then they are dumb.
Why should you get more money as a foreigner? It’s rare that a foreigner is the highest paid person in a company, unless you are a specialist engineer on package , or someone sent from overseas.
My issue is that Taiwanese HR are reticent to give higher salaries to foreigners, when they wouldn’t be for a local
You are talking about “why” from a moral sense.I am talking really really basic economics. If you get higher pay you are worth more , as demand is higher for you than a local doing that job. I did not say you are better I said you are more valuable to them in economic terms than a local Ken or Karen. If not then why would they pay you more ?