As you may have noticed, I have posted a lot about Chinatown and Cantonese-American matters recently. Yes, this is a result of the two decades long relationship between Savage Kitten and myself coming to an end.
Actually, it hasn't ended. But it has changed enormously.
We no longer share a bed, no longer cuddle or kiss, and no longer make any significant effort to eat together.
[I do not like eating alone. In any context, it is depressing. In a Chinese context, it sets one apart, outside normal relationships. More than anything else it marks the termination.]
We now have separate lives, and often are not in the apartment at the same time. No longer a couple, we're just good friends and roommates.
In case you were wondering, I have pretty much recovered.
And yes, I would be looking for another panty-wearing person with whom to share my life, if I had ANY friggin' clue how to go about doing that!
[It has been a very long time since I was 'in the market', so I'm rather in the dark here. Suffice to say the lucky victim will NOT be a Berkeleyite, nor someone with eccentric piercings, or tattoos.]
BUT ENOUGH ABOUT ME, LET'S TALK ABOUT “THE WHITE DEVIL”!
White Devil being what the Cantonese affectionately call us paler complected people. All non-Chinese are 'Gwai' (鬼), white people are 'Pak Gwai' (白鬼).
Or 'Lo Fan' (佬番).
[Long and slightly bitter note: The White Devil is a clever sort of chap, admittedly, but he is NOT appropriate boyfriend / husband material for anyone’s daughter. Not in this lifetime. Why, the entire clan would lose respect if such a situation were to occur. Obedient daughters only marry financially stable Chinese-American college graduates, then give birth to multiple males, and for the rest shut up and avoid making waves. Someone else's ignorant slut-tramp girl-child may hang out with The White Devil - not yours! Ever.
You may have to beat her in order to make her understand that. Or disown the bitch and diligently make her life miserable for the rest of eternity IF, after forceful familial remonstration and persuasively abusive screaming, she has stubbornly and stupidly FAILED to grasp these verities.
This long and slightly bitter note is posted as a warning, very much like the Surgeon General's Warning on a pack of cigarettes. Feel free to ignore it if you wish, who are we to stop you? If you indulge in the forbidden fruit anyway, despite our cautionary wisdom and sincere concern, you only have yourself to blame for any consequences. You were warned.]
Commonly in Cantonese conversation, the white person will be identified as a Gwailo (daemonic male: 鬼佬), Gwaipo (daemonic female: 鬼婆), Gwaidai (daemonic younger brother: 鬼弟), Gwainoei (daemonic girl: 鬼女) or gwaimui (daemonic younger sister: 鬼妹).
Gwai (鬼) in most contexts translates as ghost rather than devil, but flesh-and-blood ghosts are very dangerous supernatural entities - a category that manifestly includes foreigners.
Note that ‘gwai’ (鬼) echoes the word 'gwaai' (怪) - bewildering, odd, strange, frightening, distressing. This, too, is an appropriate connotation.
[Fan (番 or 蕃) refers to all things foreign, with a connotation of 'barbarian'. It's somewhat old-fashioned. (Lo (佬) means male, po (婆) is the term for a female relative or a harridan, dai (弟) means younger brother, mui (妹) is a younger sister, and noei (女) usually simply means girl.]
Gwai, in any combination, is sometimes merely an identifier, being the most unusual and recognizable characteristic of the person in question.
It isn't necessarily meant deprecatorily.
For instance, your friend might mention Ah-Jun. You wonder if he is speaking of Ah-Jun the murderer OR Ah-Jun the sister of Ah-Pok who ran away with that Shanghainese dude. Perhaps Lam Chi-Jun, with the older son at Stanford. A few minutes into the conversation you are completely confused - which Ah-Jun is it? Sa-sou Ah-Jun (killer-hands Ah-Jun), SeungHoi piu Ah-Jun (Shanghai trollop Ah-Jun), or Pan-kokap Ah-Jun (pretentious stuck-up Ah-Jun)?
Your friend exclaims "none of those, I'm talking about Gwailo Ah-Jun (White Devil Ah-Jun), you dunderhead!".
Aha! Now you know. It's John the tax accountant. The man you wouldn't trust around your kid sister. That Ah-Jun.
Polite terms are rarely if ever appended as modifiers to 'gwai', though I have been called Gwai Sooksook' (barbarian uncle: 鬼叔叔) and Gwai Sinsang (mister barbarian: 鬼先生). Both locutions indicate an ambivalence - obviously I am not Chinese, but as a Chinese-speaker I do deserve some consideration, no?
The problem is solved when I am politely asked how I may be appelled (點稱呼 "diem ching fu?"). Whereafter some semblance of my actual name will be modified by 'sook' (叔) or 'sinsang' - father's younger brother or 'elder born' (先生) respectively.
[Casually, instead of the formal 'diem ching fu', someone may ask 'ney kiu mat meng?' (你叫乜名 "you called what name?"). Both questions may be followed by a term of politeness - Ah Sook or Sinsang - or, in the case of the latter query, include the term of address within the question: Ah Sook kiu mat meng (阿叔叫乜名)? Sinsang kiu mat meng (先生叫乜名)?]
Considering how difficult it is for many Chinese to pronounce multiple consonant cluster Western names, it has been easier to simply introduce myself as Ah Mak (阿麥). It sounds pleasantly "us-folks", and by doing so I become a knowable quantity.
Young people inevitably change it to the respectful yet familiar 'Mak Sooksook' (麥叔叔) - Uncle Mak.
SUPER FREAK
Given the opprobrious terminology outlined above, you might think that associating with Cantonese people offers scant pleasure. But you would be wrong. Cantonese commonly cut the white person an enormous amount of slack, because they fully understand that our kin-groups are smaller or non-existent, our bonds with friends and family don't follow the norm, and that we cannot comprehend the proper relationships.
We're just not Chinese.
Our culture is different, they realize that. We might not even have ancestors.
They aren’t sure what makes us tick. But they know we tick.
A person of Chinese ethnicity is expected to behave a certain way and speak a certain way.
If they don't speak fluent Chinese, there's something very questionable about them. How come they don’t understand normal speech? Why do they not grasp the proper protocols? What is WRONG with them?
Maybe they should’ve been beaten more as youngsters?
White people, on the other hand, represent something disconcerting, yet deliciously different. You never know what's going to come out of their mouths, or how they will react.
How wonderful it must be to have so few restraints! Such freedom!
White folks do have it easier.
AND ON THE THIRD HAND ......
A white person who actually speaks Cantonese is a miraculous beast - just enough unpredictability to be tremendously exciting, but still relatively able to behave like a proper human being.
[When White Devils know Mandarin they are not nearly so engaging. They probably have that Northern snootiness, too. Gosh what a bore. Where did you find this turkey?]
You might not want your daughter or sister to marry the talking White Devil, but you just can't resist flabbergasting friends and colleagues with this splendid find. How marvelous that one of them actually communicates!
And he reads and writes too!
Sometimes it's okay to be treated like an amazing genius.
True, you may get asked all kinds of oddball questions - after all you do present a window into a strange world, as well as someone who can explain or translate the surrounding environment - but Cantonese people really do appreciate wondrous beings.
Taoist immortals, idiot savants, carnival geeks, famous scholars, folks who act outrageous in public, and weird white guys.
They're fun.
It is far better to be on the outside looking in, than on the inside desperately looking out.
AFTERTHOUGHT
Many Cantonese unconsciously overlook the unhealthy skin and frightening daemon eyes, especially if the other person differentiates him or herself by showing interesting traits or evidence of shared commonality - familiar faces are always far less white.
All men are brothers, after all, and the more you know someone, the more you can understand them.
Above all else (except food), the Cantonese are fascinated by people.
All people.
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12 comments:
It seems like this kind of xenophoobia has mostly been driven under the rug in western cultures. I guess a couple hundred years ago, it was common for white people to call blacks "monkeys" or call asians ethnic slurs. Seems like these guys never dropped this habit.
Well, Asians can be outrageous racists.
And the Chinese KNOW that they are the centre of the universe. They're very much like the Dutch that way.
Part of the 'problem' is that there really is no polite catch-all term for foreigners in any of the Chinese languages.
Pak-chong ('White Breed' 白種) is far too bare-bones clinical. SaiFong-yan ('West-Region person' 西方人) is merely a geographic-origin descriptive, and it lacks oomph. Neither term has much currency outside the printed page.
Polite Cantonese use 'Lofan' (佬番) - without realizing that it is actually even worse. There is often a disconnect between the usage and the literal meaning of the characters.
The term 'lo' (佬), by the way, gets appended to nearly ALL non-Cantonese regionomens. Tiewchau lo (dude from Chao Zhou: 潮州佬), Pak-keng lo (Peking dude: 北京佬), SeungHoi lo (Shanghainese dude: 上海佬), und so weiter.
Lo is a disparaging term ab initio.
The Cantonese mode of expressing themselves is notorious among the other Chinese - ribald, crude, obscenely hyperbolic, lyrically foul, impossibly coarse at times, earthy....... to curse and swear is often closer than second nature.
The first phrase everybody learns in Cantonese is an invitation to rape the addressee's mother, the second one likens another woman to an old dead gossipy slut. The Cantonese use certain terms so casually that they have ceased to have much weight, however.
Northerners (especially Shanghainese) are much worse bigots. They universally despise everyone. And the Pekingese have preconceptions about other Chinese so fierce that one cannot even deal with them.
For the Cantonese, such usages are a cheerful equivalent of sportsfans yelling at supporters of the other team "you guys suuuuuuck!"
Question:
I see from your previous post that the word "gwai" is part of the phrase "poisonous bitch mom" (臭鬼婆), too. So it's not just used in reference to Caucasian people?
(BTW, great expression. Equally applicable to my Palestinian Jewish mother.)
Tayere Yeshive Bokher,
It is UNIVERSALLY applicable. The literal translation of 臭鬼婆 is 'putrid devil female-relative'. The word 'po' (婆) is often used for any woman beyond adolescence whom the speaker disparages.
Gwai (鬼) is a word of many uses - the man you hate might be a 'szey lo gwai' ("dead old devil" 死老鬼), the thing you don't want to touch is a 'gwai mat' ("devilish thing" 鬼物), the kid who is driving you up the wall could be an 'ok-gwai' ("evil daemon" 惡鬼), and the person who loathes you, naturally, is a 'yim-gwai' ("despicable ghost" 嫌鬼).
Gwai can sometimes even be a verb: gwai neige tou (鬼你嘅頭) is something you could yell at another person in anger - it literally means 'devil your head!'. Which makes more sense if you keep in mind that 'gwai' is clearly opprobrious, and the 'neige' (你嘅) construction is frequently part of insulting phrases. Snapping "good 你嘅 morning" is distinctly NOT a wish that the listener have a good morning.
>Well, Asians can be outrageous racists.
And the Chinese KNOW that they are the centre of the universe. They're very much like the Dutch that way.
I guess my point being that this has always been human nature. Hence Jews are the chosen people, and the goyim are... But in western civilized society it seems like we have gotten past this mostly...
April 24, 2013
"In case you were wondering, I have pretty much recovered."
That was, as it turns out, a wildly incorrect statement at the time (November 2010).
At present I believe it is accurate.
I am still single.
Now pay attention! Everything the Chinese call white people is listed here: Chinese and Westerners.
And please note that our noses and eyes are scarcely an issue.
Loved this. As an Amazing Cantonese Speaking guai-noei ... well. Spot on. My late father-in-law used to show me off to his friends in exactly the way you describe. I was large, blue-eyed, curly-haired, and extremely pale, but look! She can talk, read, and write! (The reading and writing part was mostly because I studied Mandarin, but never mind.) My acceptance by the in-laws probably was helped by the fact that of their six children, only one other married a Cantonese-speaker (a real one, from Hong Kong). The other four married Mandarin-speaking Chinese who naturally couldn't be bothered to learn Cantonese. I felt rather grateful to them for making me look good by comparison.
So far, of the hundreds of Mandarin speakers I have met over the years, only two could speak Cantonese. They both sell liquor and work in Chinatown, so there was an incentive.
But many local Cantonese have learned Mandarin, as it helps them get those people to part with their money.
Oh, and it helps them feel better than those folks.
The Mandarin contingent, nowadays, outnumbers the Cantos in San Francisco.
As a Cantonese Speaking guai-nuei I would imagine that you've been roped into the Cantonese faction in family politics.
There is text in here that seem strange to me, as a Mandarin speaker, and married to a Mainlander, but now, after 16 years, and having been in Taiwan, the Mainland, and Hong Kong, after 20 years, and finding that their were many things culturally hidden from me, either purposely or not, things are starting to make sense.
Thanks!
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