Poll: Would you call someone a foreigner, back home?

Taiwan Living in Taiwan
1

Would you call someone a foreigner when back in your home country?

  • Yes
  • No

0 voters

Yesterday I read this article in the China Post, which is short enough to be quoted in full:

[quote]Hsinchu honors foreigner with Certificate of Appreciation

TAIPEI, Taiwan – U.S. citizen Ted Knoy (柯泰德) was awarded with a “Certificate of Appreciation” by Hsinchu City Mayor Hsu Ming-tsai (許明財) in recognition to his educational contributions to the area, yesterday.

Knoy’s contributions to the nation’s education system over the past 23 years won him the recognition. Knoy received his Alien Permanent Residency Certificate (APRC) in 2000, when he became the first foreigner in Hsinchu and first American in Taiwan to receive it.

Upon receiving the certificate, Knoy said, “This recognition is especially important for me personally since, as of November this year, I will have spend most of my life here in Taiwan, after first arriving here as a 24-year-old back in 1989.”

Knoy received his teaching certificate from the Ministry of Education and taught technical writing at both National Tsing Hua University and National Chiao Tung University.

As an English editor of several technical and scientific publications in Taiwan, he has edited over 55,000 articles for publication since his arrival in Taiwan.

In addition to authoring 14 books on technical and professional English writing, Ted also served as an associate researcher in Union Chemical Laboratories, Industrial Technology Research Institute between 1994 and 2002.[/quote]

And my first thought was: I wonder if he feels honored being called a foreigner? :laughing: Anyway, I discussed it with one of my classes last night and my students were all completely miffed as to why anyone might be offended by the word. I well realize it is not the intention of Taiwanese to offend when using this word and the poll is not really about Taiwanese. The question is, would YOU use the word, back home?

I wouldn’t, personally, as it seems too parochial and exclusionary.

2

I think it’s very parochial.

Usually it would be phrased like this… ‘Hsinchu resident of 20 years , originally from Timbuktu … Etc etc’

Foreigner would not be used in this context, but his nationality or place of origin would be. If they want to bring up a generic foreigner term they use the rather PC version in the media these days… Non-national.

No point asking somebody from the mono ethnic isolated island of Taiwan their views on this, you may as well ask them what do you think of dog sledding in Alaska :slight_smile:.

3

If someone’s a foreigner, then yes, I see nothing wrong with referring to them as a foreigner. It’s a neutral term.

What I wouldn’t do is go to another country and call the locals “foreigners”.

4

It’s neutral but not a respectful term in my book.

5

The choice of words clearly illustrates that the most important defining fact about the subject of the article is him being a foreigner. Which is a stance most locals will share. It is not so interesting from which country he comes, as all Western foreigners here are usually seen as Americans or somewhat American anyway. The locals define themselves as being Taiwanese (or Taiwan-citizens to avoid the somewhat politically cloudy word Taiwanese) in opposition to the “foreigners”.

This is not the case in my home country for example. In Germany, having a migration background becomes more and more common and people do not really care so much if you are a former foreigner having obtained citizenship or one of the many being there on some form of stay permit. The term “foreigner” would carry not much information for a reader in my country and pointing out this meaningless fact would raise the question if the author is somewhat anti-foreigner and thus wants to make a big deal of it.

So a German newspaper would write “Taiwanese got award…” because that would have some kind of meaning for the reader. Who would then mistake the Taiwanese for a Thai citizen. :wink:

6

Would you call them a foreigner if you knew their nationality?

:laughing: Recently I heard about some Taiwanese in Australia - naturalized Australians - walking around doing exactly this. :roflmao:

7

Nope, it would be backward, rude and hickish. It doesn’t follow that Taiwanese people are being obnoxious or peasantish, though. My country has different patterns of migration than Taiwan.

8

I lived in Taiwan for 5 years then went back to the UK to do an MA. All my classmates were either from Taiwan or China. As much as I like Taiwan, I am embarrassed to say that most of my Taiwanese classmates and their friends would go around referring to the locals as foreigners. I found this pretty annoying, but didn’t bother correcting them. I don’t know if my Chinese classmates did it or not, but at least they didn’t do it around me. When I was in the UK, I’d not normally refer to non-nationals as foreigners, only perhaps in a joking sense… for instance when Taiwanese friends of mine insisted on taking photos of everything, especially in restaurants, their dish, my dish, me eating and even other people (which I found uncomfortable). I would just face-palm and say tssch… foreigners.

9

I teach Taiwanese students in the UK: they drive me up the wall partly for the reasons you mention. They’re generally lazy, entitled, parochial and fairly unpopular. The Kazazhs in particular avoid them like the plague.

10

I call them:
‘other country people’
‘old other’
or
‘big nosed bird’

11

I think I prefer being called “foreign” to being called “white,” but I’m not entirely sure. I’d love to ask this question to immigrants to Taiwan, like Quincy Davis (basketball player), who doubtlessly still get called 老外 even though they have IDs and household registration and the whole nine yards. Isn’t someone on this board a naturalized citizen?

12

I probably wouldn’t because in English, or maybe Western culture, the word has mildly derogatory overtones. I’m not sure if the same applies in Taiwanese culture, or if the term is entirely neutral and just means someone originating from another country.

I might refer to someone as a migrant, rather than a foreigner.

13

I do all the time, speaking Chinese. Because that’s how you express that meaning appropriately in Chinese.

I sometimes do not, speaking English. Because it’s not considered appropriate to use that term in the US to refer to non-nationals – but in Taiwan, it IS usual to use “foreigner” in English to refer to someone who is not ethnically Chinese. I mean, honestly – who hasn’t been talking to a friend in English about some new person he met, and asked, “Is she a foreigner or a Taiwanese?” (Well, better reverse the gender – no reason a non-Chinese/Taiwanese guy would be talking about having met a non-Chinese/Taiwanese girl in Taiwan, is there?) :wink:

14

I think I marginally prefer the term Westerner, although this makes me uncomfortable to a small degree as well.

15

I suppose, like a lot of other words, it depends on the context. In that other thread where the (Taiwanese?) poster is being uncommonly ignorant about 外國人, it’s bothersome. In that newspaper article, I don’t see a problem with it. It only annoys me when people use the word “foreigner” to mean a member of some mythical, culturally-homogenous group of non-Taiwanese. I don’t really like 西方人 because it’s often used as a politically-correct alternative for “white” - that is, a lumpen mass of people as culturally diverse as Slovaks, Irish, and Norwegians, who are nevertheless assumed to have something in common simply by virtue of being white. It reminds me of the way a certain sort of American man talks about “ayzhuns” with a faraway look in his eye and his hand in his pocket.

:roflmao:

Any idea why?

The Taiwanese must be immensely surprised. After all, British people and Kazakhs are all 西方人, right? :laughing:

16

[quote=“finley”]I suppose, like a lot of other words, it depends on the context. In that other thread where the (Taiwanese?) poster is being uncommonly ignorant about 外國人, it’s bothersome. In that newspaper article, I don’t see a problem with it. It only annoys me when people use the word “foreigner” to mean a member of some mythical, culturally-homogenous group of non-Taiwanese. I don’t really like 西方人 because it’s often used as a politically-correct alternative for “white” - that is, a lumpen mass of people as culturally diverse as Slovaks, Irish, and Norwegians, who are nevertheless assumed to have something in common simply by virtue of being white. It reminds me of the way a certain sort of American man talks about “ayzhuns” with a faraway look in his eye and his hand in his pocket.

:roflmao:

Any idea why?

The Taiwanese must be immensely surprised. After all, British people and Kazakhs are all 西方人, right? :laughing:[/quote]

Apart from the ones whose grandparents escaped from Xinjiang. ‘You are a Chinese, no?’ ‘Fuuuuck off’ (swears in Russian). The Taiwanese also find it inexplicable that they do Ramadan, despite looking nothing like Saudis and ask questions such as ‘why you fasting if you no pious?’. Nosy questions about religious beliefs and racial heritage seem fairly unpopular.

They were all placed in classes last September. The Kazazhs are an elite fighting/learning force who are here on an extremely competitive scholarship program. On average, they move up 2 to 2.5 IELTS bands in a year. Three of them got 8.5 in the reading paper, with 8 overall recently. The other students are bone idle rich gulf state kids, and shopping queen East Asians who move up .5 to 1 IELTS band in a year, rarely do homework, have no opinions or world view and are here on their families’ coin. The Kazakhs avoid them because they are lazy, spoiled, and don’t join in. The Taiwanese also ‘joke’ about how they must have contacts in the IELTS office which the Kazakhs find extremely offensive but they keep making the joke because they don’t pick up the social cues.

That’s the explanation for these Kazakhs and these Taiwanese kids, though. Of course there must be plenty in the Uni who are amazing, so I’m not generalising from these kids to all Taiwanese student kids.

Taiwanese people get it: they hate being lumped in with other east Asian. They just don’t empathise. Many genuinely think that they don’t look like Koreans or Japanese at all, yet Brits look just the same as Spanish or Turkish people from what I can gather.

17

I suppose it would be slightly more correct to just call westerners BIG NOSE.

As in , oh all the BIG NOSE in England love their pubs. That would be a correct statement mostly.

Rather then saying all the Foreigners in England love their pubs. Which unless it referred to themselves would not be correct.

18

No, it just shows how insular Taiwanese people can be. Brits don’t have big noses, compared with many other Europeans, generally speaking, and pubs have been in decline for years. Not defensiveness, just … true. The first assumption about the noses is a comparison against themselves, rather than comparative knowledge about the world. The second assumption is just a silly stereotype from people who know nothing about the place. Meh. Parochial: racial assumptions are parochial at best, racist at worst. Or they are perceived that way why the people that hear them, even if the intention to hurt isn’t there.

Calling someone by a perceived physical racial characteristic is extremely rude in my country. I understand it is less so in other countries, and it’s part of having a certain inter cultural literacy to be able to tolerate discomfort when people speak to you or about you in ways that are considered unpleasant back home, I guess. We also need to realise we can offend others without meaning to either.

19

It’s as accurate as calling people from the Southern Hemisphere Westerners. I don’t see the problem.

20

I would say that in the UK I hear plenty of people talking about foreign people. We perhaps don’t use the word foreigner, but we talk about people being foreign, e.g. foreign migrant or foreign student. However, this is blended with plenty of conversation linked to the exact location of the person, “She is from China.” In addition, in a shop in England you don’t know the nationality of a person, so they wouldn’t be labelled as foreign because there is a good chance they aren’t. However, in Taiwan, if you are white it’s 100% nailed on you aren’t Taiwanese.

So you add these things up. In England we do talk about people being foreign, but things don’t ever go beyond that because we don’t always know who is foreign. In Taiwan you have people calling people foreign, plus you have the visual data thing, so it becomes more prevalent.

I went out for a pint with some people from Portugal, France, Germany and Italy the other day. They all had different rumours about how people from their respective countries don’t do certain things. The German said the Portugese women don’t shave, but the Portugeue person replied that the Spanish women are the hairiest. The French and the German had a thing or two to say about that.

Swings and roundabouts. Everyone is a little bit culturally insensitive. It’s life and psychology.