I thought this term is used in China to talk about the interior in its geographical sense. In Shanghai, people from other provinces coming into Shanghai are referred to as “wai di ren”, even if they are from China’s “nei di”, being as they are “wai di” relative to the speaker, I suppose.
Did HK newspapers use “dalu” as well in the past?
So I am interested in this new usage. So HK newspapers are now using “nei di”? Are there political overtones to it?
The pan-blue media are referring to mainland China now as “nei di”? What are the different political implications of that word compared to “dalu”? Are they trying to prepare the ground for a One Country Two Systems viewpoint similar to HK’s?
Do green papers exclusively use “Zhongguo” to refer to China?
At the border at both Shenzhen and Zhuhai the queues for mainlanders say nei di ren. Like you I always assumed nei di ren referred to the usually migrant workers from the hinterland. I now suspect it’s a more politically correct form of mainlander in order to differentiate HK and Taiwanese Chinese
Used in Hong Kong and Macao to refer to mainland China. Neidiren is the approved term for ‘mainlander’.
Used in the colonial period in Taiwan to mean citizens from Japan proper. Some pro-TI people use it to refer to Nantou (this is ironic and done to show how ignorant people are of Taiwanese history when they use the term neidiren in sense 2).
I’ve seem it occasionally used by hard line pro-unification advocates and by ‘sophisticates’ trying to show off their knowledge of China affairs to Chinese visitors. Never used in mainstream blue papers like China Times.
The green media tends to avoid dalu or zhongguodalu. Some papers like the Liberty Times are very strict and always use Zhongguo. Others (like minshi) have rules against using it, but younger anchors (often WSR) sometimes forget and use it. This provokes howls of protest from green viewers.
I thought this term is used in China to talk about the interior in its geographical sense. In Shanghai, people from other provinces coming into Shanghai are referred to as “wai di ren”, even if they are from China’s “nei di”, being as they are “wai di” relative to the speaker, I suppose.
Did HK newspapers use “dalu” as well in the past?
So I am interested in this new usage. So HK newspapers are now using “nei di”? Are there political overtones to it?
The pan-blue media are referring to mainland China now as “nei di”? What are the different political implications of that word compared to “dalu”? Are they trying to prepare the ground for a One Country Two Systems viewpoint similar to HK’s?
Do green papers exclusively use “Zhongguo” to refer to China?
Used in Hong Kong and Macao to refer to mainland China. Neidiren is the approved term for ‘mainlander’.
Used in the colonial period in Taiwan to mean citizens from Japan proper. Some pro-TI people use it to refer to Nantou (this is ironic and done to show how ignorant people are of Taiwanese history when they use the term neidiren in sense 2).
I’ve seen it occasionally used by hard line pro-unification advocates and by ‘sophisticates’ trying to show off their knowledge of China affairs to Chinese visitors. Never used in mainstream blue papers like China Times.
The green media tends to avoid dalu or zhongguodalu. Some papers like the Liberty Times are very strict and always use Zhongguo. Others (like minshi) have rules against using it, but younger anchors (often WSR) sometimes forget and use it. This provokes howls of protest from green viewers.
I thought this term is used in China to talk about the interior in its geographical sense. In Shanghai, people from other provinces coming into Shanghai are referred to as “wai di ren”, even if they are from China’s “nei di”, being as they are “wai di” relative to the speaker, I suppose.
Did HK newspapers use “dalu” as well in the past?
So I am interested in this new usage. So HK newspapers are now using “nei di”? Are there political overtones to it?
The pan-blue media are referring to mainland China now as “nei di”? What are the different political implications of that word compared to “dalu”? Are they trying to prepare the ground for a One Country Two Systems viewpoint similar to HK’s?
Do green papers exclusively use “Zhongguo” to refer to China?
It’s one of those terms that depend on context, but yes, definitely neidi is increasingly used to refer to (what used to be called) dalu by mainlanders. “waidi” is used everywhere, not just in Shanghai, to refer to anyone but a local. The term is also used in other “border” regions, including Tibet, Xinjiang, and Mongolia. In all these areas, “neidi” would be used to refer to the central plains of China.
By the way, for the Chinese readers out there, let me introduce ya to a great resource that I’m in love with. It’s Baidu’s zhidao (knowledge) service. It’s like Google Answers, but it’s free, and there’s much more traffic in both question and answer form. I think it’s reached critical mass for popular usage. I don’t care what topic you’re interested in, be it politics/medicine/investment/banking… scroll through the archives here, and there’s a good chance someone has asked it, and someone else has given an excellent answers.
And here, for example, is a veeerrry precise answer addressing exactly the neidi/dalu question:
In my first month in HK, I quickly learned not to use daluren to talk about mainland Chinese. Neidiren is considered more polite. Of course there’s nothing negative in words that mean “big” and “land” in and of themselves, but the way it is used in HK is quite often in a context that imparts pejorative meaning, i.e. the word 大陆婆 being used to refer to any and all women from the mainland. I avoid using daluren. Of course it’s perfectly fine for Cantonese speakers to call us ghosts, though. :fume: