Laowai

Laowai is the Mandarin pronunciation of (pinyin: lǎowài, lit. "Very foreign"), an informal term or slang for "foreigner," usually neutral but possibly impolite or loose in some circumstances. Formal and polite Chinese terms for foreigner include wàiguórén (simplified Chinese: ; traditional Chinese: ; literally: "foreigner"), wàibīn (; ; "foreigner guest"), guójì yǒurén ; ; "international friend") and wàiguó pengyou (; ; "foreigner friend"). "Laowai" usually does not refer to Chinese living abroad or East Asians who are non-Chinese. The term is typically used to refer to Westerners of European descent, sub-Saharan Africans, Latin Americans, and Middle Easterners.

The use of the word began in the 1980s, as an abbreviation of the term (foreigner) into (foreign or outside) plus the character (old). The character typically means "". It can have positive associations, indicating age or experience — such as lǎopéngyou (; "old friend")—or respect, as in the familiar use of lǎo to denote the senior and respected members of families or to address teachers (; , lǎoshī).

However, in certain contexts, it can also carry negative connotations of being old or aged looking (; ), boring old —as in lǎo gǔdǒng (Chinese: )—or of years of experience and contempt—as in lǎo dōngxi (; ; "old bastard", lit. "old thing"). It may be used in the arts or in jokes with the sense of "always" or "very": a famous comedy role was named the Lǎoniān (, "Old Listless"). And Tom Hardy was affectionately known in mainland China as Lǎoshī (Chinese: , s ) because of his perpetually shiny hair, also because of his role "Eames" in Inception (2010) sounds like . It can also be used as an empty prefix, particularly with animals such as tigers (; lǎohǔ), mice (; lǎoshǔ), and eagles (; ; lǎoyīng).

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