An Interesting Story
July 14th, 2005 § 3 Comments
I originally posted this on Forumosa.com then I thought “Shit, I’m posting over here all the time and never on my blog, maybe it should be the other way around!” So now anyone that happens by today will get to read it here.
Laowai = Foreigner (I guess it’s kind of bad or something, I don’t know. Not “PC” anyway.)
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Maybe this isn’t that interesting… (link to post)
After a healthy veggie dinner I was strolling home and went past the local Ganster run gambling place (like I often do), when this guy sitting on a parked scooter goes “Laowai! Laowai! Laowai!” I gave him a looked and laughed. Then he started mumbling something so I turned around to see what he was talking about.
He went on to tell me about that commercial for that food where in the commercial they go “Laowai! Laowai! Laowai!” and he was just mimicking that commercial (for some reason unknown to me). I laughed even harder the second time and went on my way.
That’s my interesting story for the day.
Glad to see the blog is up and running again. I think I should try your idea with making a list of things to do. I’m not doing too good at getting things done.
“Laowai” in the commercial means “always going out (to eat)”, so maybe he knew you were eating out, and thought that it was funny that the laowai was laowai.
BTW, laowai isn’t derogatory, IMO. “Lao” in Chinese is always used as an honorific, hence laoban, laoshi, laogong and laopo (boss, teacher, husband and wife)
Yeah, it doesn’t bother me either and never has, I just know others seem offended by it. I’m pretty sure the guy used was trying to be funny in this situation (thought I’ve been known to be wrong at times
).