Quilo
| Gweilo | |||||||||||||
| Chinese | 鬼佬 | ||||||||||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
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| Transcriptions | |
|---|---|
| Standard Mandarin | |
| Hanyu Pinyin | guǐlǎo |
| Yue: Cantonese | |
| Yale Romanization | gwáilóu |
| Jyutping | gwai2 lou2 |
Gweilo or gwailou (Chinese: ; Cantonese Yale: gwáilóu, pronounced [kʷɐ̌i lǒu]) is a common Cantonese slang term for Westerners. In its unmodified form, it applies only to European ethnicities and has a history of racially deprecatory use. Cantonese speakers frequently use gwailou to refer to Westerners in general use, in a non-derogatory context, although whether this type of usage is offensive is disputed by both Cantonese and Westerners alike.
Gwái () means "ghost", and lóu () means "man". The term gwáilóu therefore literally means "ghostly man", and is sometimes translated into English as "foreign devil". The term arose due to Europeans' pale white complexion, which was seen as being ghost-like. The term ghost has also been used to describe other ethnic groups, for example, a 17th-century writer from Canton wrote that Africans "look like ghosts", and gwáinòu (Chinese: ; literally: "ghost slave") was once used to describe African slaves.
The term gwái () is an adjective that can be used to express hate and deprecation, an example being the local's expression of their hatred towards the Japanese during their occupation of Hong Kong in World War II with the same gwái. It conveys a general bad and negative feeling but is a somewhat obsolete and archaic/old-fashioned term nowadays and other more modern terms have largely replaced gwái for similarly negative meanings. Cantonese people sometimes call each other sēui gwái (), which means bad person, though more often than not it is applied affectionately, similar to "Hey bitch!" in English when used affectionately. Nowadays, Cantonese speakers often refer to non-Chinese people by their ethnicity.
The pejorative sense of gwáilóu () can be specified when the term is prefaced by the adjective séi (Chinese: 死; literally: "dead"), which would be equilvalent to saying damn foreigner (死鬼佬, Cantonese Yale: séi gwáilóu). Séi (死) is also commonly added to other terms to describe a person being bad, such as séi lóu (; "bad man") or séi chāailóu (; "bad policeman").
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Wikipedia