Mad spishas.
Best Robert Townsend movie.
We all know an Eddie King Jr.
You say yourself that they're not a translation that means that black people or white people are demons or monstrous. That means reading it as "white devil" or "black devil" is incorrect.Nah, people pretty much use Gui/gwai as a catch-all for ghost/devil/demon/spirit/mischievous or evil creature. You have other terms if you want to get more specific but essentially the translation is essentially "white devil" or "black devil", etc. The connotation is not that these people are demons or monstrous, but more like "annoying white people who cause trouble" or "annoying black people".
There's your lesson in Chinese racism for the day.
Another fun fact: the phrase for Jewish in Chinese is "You tai", which literally translates to "feral animal". The phrase was introduced by Jesuit missionaries. Centuries ago, you had populations of Jewish traders in China, and when the government officials asked the Jesuits (who had ingratiated themselves with the Imperial bureaucracy) what to call them, they chose the characters for feral animal.
It was a silly joke not racism.
Wow, even Chinese people have their own slur for black people......
Nah, people pretty much use Gui/gwai as a catch-all for ghost/devil/demon/spirit/mischievous or evil creature. You have other terms if you want to get more specific but essentially the translation is essentially "white devil" or "black devil", etc. The connotation is not that these people are demons or monstrous, but more like "annoying white people who cause trouble" or "annoying black people".
There's your lesson in Chinese racism for the day.
Another fun fact: the phrase for Jewish in Chinese is "You tai", which literally translates to "feral animal". The phrase was introduced by Jesuit missionaries. Centuries ago, you had populations of Jewish traders in China, and when the government officials asked the Jesuits (who had ingratiated themselves with the Imperial bureaucracy) what to call them, they chose the characters for feral animal.
I remember being called "hak gwai" a lot while living in Toronto near Chinatown. Many of my so called friends used it while snickering. So I ask, why do some people think this isn't a slur? Cause whether it means black demon or black ghost, it sure as hell didn't mean black person. Clearly some kind of other. So please check your bullshit reasoning.
"Too bad none of them died," he added. "One less to worry about."
You called it racist and I'm in agreement with you. You also responded to someone who believes that it may have been racist before, but now is used as a "colloquial term to refer to black people in general". I mean wtf?Maybe I missed it but...who said it wasn't?
"Gwai" is used in conjunction with qualifiers to mean things other than ghost. "Mo gwai" for monster, for example. I think "gwai" just means ghost.
Also, I call bullshit on the "you tai" thing, because it's a nonsensical transliteration. 犹太. 犹 is an adverb equivalent to "still" and 太 is the equivalent to "grand". Don't make shit up to make the Chinese look bad. We do plenty fine by ourselves.
You say yourself that they're not a translation that means that black people or white people are demons or monstrous. That means reading it as "white devil" or "black devil" is incorrect.
I don't need a lesson in Chinese racism, I'm Chinese and I'm quite aware of racism amidst Chinese, thank you.
The phrase for Jewish is "you tai", but it doesn't mean feral animal. You can check the characters (犹太 for yourself, neither individually or combined match up to feral animal, so the 'feral animal' story is probably fiction. If you were familiar with actual Chinese, you'd also know right away the 'feral animal fun fact' is not a fact, because the 'tai' used in 'you tai' is the 'tai' they use to refer to empresses dowager. Unless the historians have been calling them "animal empresses" for thousands of years?
That's your lesson in Chinese language for the day.
You called it racist and I'm in agreement with you. You also responded to someone who believes that it may have been racist before, but now is used as a "colloquial term to refer to black people in general". I mean wtf?
Kind of off-topic, but back in middle school/early high school, my Vietnamese friend's mom had a pad on the fridge with his friend's phone numbers on it. It would have the person's name and the phone number, but for me - it was 'Mỹ đen' and a phone number. Which I guess means Black American or something lmao...
I have no idea. I thought about it myself when I was wondering why everything was attached to 'ghost', but in the end I guessed it might have to do with how my mom or whoever uses these terms sees 'race' in the sense that the looks are very different from themselves.
One thing that I definitely consider actually racist (?) was the term I hear used a lot for Japanese people, which translates directly to [Japan] [boy], the "boy" part being derogatory in the sense that they were looking down on Japanese as inferior. But it's been used so often I wonder if it's become more of a general reference to Japanese people rather than as a derogatory term.
With 'ghost' I can't tell if it's inferior or not, just that it is a distinction of 'other'.