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  • Walter's Blog.
  • Home
  • Introduction
  • About Walter
    • 1980 Joining Up - Grafton Street >
      • Arrival and First Impressions
      • First Week
      • Training
      • Passing Out
    • Yaumati Cowboy >
      • Getting on the Streets
      • Tempo of the City
      • Jumpers, pill poppers and the indoor BBQ
      • Into a Minefield.
    • Why Tango in Paris, when you can Foxtrot in Kowloon? >
      • Baptism By Fire
      • Kai Tak with Mrs Thatcher.
      • Home; The Boy Returns
  • 1984 - 1986
    • PTU Instructor & Getting Hitched
    • Having a go: SDU
    • Starting a Chernobyl family
    • EOD - Don't touch anything
    • Semen Stains and the rules
  • 1987 to 1992 - Should I Stay or Go?
    • Blue Lights, Sirens & Grenades
    • Drugs, Broken Kids & A Plane Crash
    • 600 Happy Meals Please!
    • Hong Kong's Best Insurance
    • Riding the Iron Horse
  • Crime in Hong Kong
    • Falling Crime Rates - Why?
    • Triads
  • History of Hong Kong Policing
    • History 1841 to 1941
    • History 1945 to 1967
    • Anatomy of the 50 cent Riot - 1966
    • The Fall of a Commissioner.
    • History 1967 to 1980
    • Three Wise Men from the West
    • The Blue Berets.
    • The African Korps and other tribes.
    • Getting About - Transport.
    • A Pub in every station
    • Bullshit Bingo & Meetings
    • Godber - The one who nearly got away.
    • Uncle Ho
  • Top 20 Films
    • 2001 - A Space Odyssey.
    • The Godfather.
    • Blade Runner
    • Kes
    • Star Wars
    • Aliens
    • Ferris Bueller's Day Off
    • The Life of Brian
    • Dr Strangelove.
    • Infernal Affairs
    • Bridge on the River Kwai.
    • This Is Spinal Tap.
    • Chung King Express
    • An Officer and a Gentleman
    • PTU
    • Contact
    • Saving Private Ryan
    • Family Guy Star Wars
    • Zulu
    • Hard Day's Night
  • The Long Read
    • How The Walls Come Down
    • War in Ukraine - the narrative and other stuff.
    • The Hidden Leader
    • The Big Game
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Walter's Blog

"But how can you live and have no story to tell?" Fyodor Dostoevsky
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Reflections on recent events, plus the occasional fact free rant unfiltered by rational argument. 

"If you want to read a blog to get a sense of what is going on in Hong Kong these days or a blog that would tell you wh at life was like living in colonial Hong Kong, this blog, WALTER'S BLOG, fits the bill."  Hong Kong Blog Review

6/9/2018 3 Comments

我係鬼佬,英國人

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"While racism exists in Hong Kong, and that's not welcome, the place is refreshing to be free of the postmodern nonsense that infects the West."
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I heard the word 'gweilo' within an hour of landing in Hong Kong. By the end of that first week, it had entered my vocabulary as a generic term for the expat. The full import of its possible meanings only come later.

I've used the word to describe myself in front of locals because of its disarming impact. On occasions I've seen a few grimaces of discomfort while others sniggered.

Thus, I read of Mr Francis Haden with some interest today. He's claiming racial discrimination, in part, because folks at work called him 'gweilo’. Haden is suing his employer, seeking HK$200,000 for hurt feelings.

​Of course, there is a back story, although the details are sketchy. Haden works as a blasting engineer on construction sites. He's alleging an underlying hostility towards non-Chinese with the use of 'gweilo’ in a derogatory manner.

Let us back up a bit to consider the history. 'Gweilo’ is the epithet used in Hong Kong for white people. The literal Chinese translation is 'foreign devil'. In Cantonese, the characters are Gwái ( 鬼), meaning "ghost", and lóu ( 佬) meaning "man". There are records of the term emerging in the 1800s during early encounters between local Chinese and European traders.

These days the word has morphed into general usage. It's entered the Hong Kong lexicon as the common group name for white expatriates. Many expatriates embrace it.

The Galloping Gwais, an expatriate football team, enjoyed some success in the 1980s. As far back as 1958, the Hong Kong Police Dragon Boat team adopted 'The Fan Gwais' - the troublesome expats. Even the spelling of the word is contested. Take your pick - Gwailo or Gweilo?

In a sense, the white expatriates hijacked the term, flipped it in a lighthearted manner to de-weaponised it. That's quite cool. So is the fact you can buy 'Gweilo Beer'- an excellent brew.

But is the word racist or derogatory? That depends on how you understand the term, usage and context. I'm leaning towards the view that context is critical here. How the word gets deployed makes a difference in deciding if it's racist or hurtful. I consulted an SJW acquittance in the interest of balance, who came back with this response.

"Gweilo was never used to oppress a marginalised group. White expatriates are colonisers, and colonised people used the word to describe their colonisers."

OK, that's interesting. The reply infers that labelling with racist language is fine and dandy for the rich and privileged. That response fits the postmodern agenda of seeing all white people as oppressors. So, we are no further forward.

I can recall the term used to insult me. A local police officer took umbrage at my negative feedback for an idea he championed in a meeting. He was fuming;

"You Gwailo's don't understand."

The room went silent. He's broken an unwritten rule to cross a line crossed. He'd deployed the word to offend. I recognised that.

"I beg your pardon, Sir?"

He realised the offence caused, retreated and then apologised. That's the distinction of context. Using Gweilo as a pejorative term has a sting.

I'd draw a comparison to the use of the n-word; usage is fraught with danger as I'm stepping through a minefield of possible misinterpretation. Yet daily, black youth drop the n-word to each other in conversation, plus make liberal use of it in rap music.

But marvel at the reaction if a white person says the word. The consequences are serious; careers ruined, public attacks and cyberattacks piling in. Again context is the issue. Given black history, white usage of the term is perceived as offensive and unacceptable. I get that.

Having said this, your average white expatriate in Hong Kong is not an underdog nor repressed. Again, we circle back to context. How about 'Ah Cha' for the Indians and Pakistanis? This word is commonly used even today. I doubt this is helpful to community relations, said with or without malice.

Still, people in this town know the term 'gweilo' has an improper use, and they sometimes deploy it. But, likewise, it has more innocent applications.

Is another dynamic at play? These days, it's easy for a subset of the population to see offence in any behaviour. Far too many people seek it in anything to garner victimhood. For example, the gender pronoun debacle is rooted in a victim culture.

Yet, seeing the world through a lens of hyper-sensitivity makes us brittle. In turn, this gives us manufactured outrages with absurdity laid upon absurdity. Even the use of certain words can evoke claims of cultural appropriation.

While racism exists in Hong Kong, and that's not welcome, the place is refreshing to be free of the postmodern nonsense that infects the West. The irrationality of identity politics, allied to deconstructionism, has left many intellectually bankrupt. For me, it is a dangerous slope to ban certain words or compel the use of others.

Anyway, we know that peer and social pressure is most effective in correcting behaviour to remove words or actions that society can no longer accept. After all, the law is a blunt tool that can produce undesirable outcomes. 'Sticks and stones will break your bones, but names can never hurt you' was the mantra when I was a kid.

Further, as that great philosopher, Mrs De Havilland, points out;

"The English laugh at the Scots, the Germans and the French; in turn, the Scots and the French laugh at the English. Meanwhile, Hong Kong people look down on Mainlanders and vice-versa. It all goes around and comes around. Get over it."

I don't know the details of Mr Haden's case, nor can I predict the outcome. But I'm watching with great interest to see how the court unties this knot.

3 Comments
Chris Emmett
7/9/2018 04:16:16 pm

Walter makes some good points about the nuances of Hong Kong’s multiculturalism and the language it generates. But there are times when it goes too far. In a previous life, I served was in the Police Complaints Office. Then, we had a vexatious complainant who (I am not making this up) made well over 1,000 complaints every year. The gentleman was of Indian heritage and one of his complaints concerned a Chinese Detective Inspector who called him a 'mo lo cha.' The Inspector freely admitted having said it but couldn’t understand what the fuss was about. He eventually got off with a warning. Anywhere else in the free world and he would have been out on his ear.

Reply
Gloria Bing
10/9/2018 10:16:44 am

Many a wise word Walter.

I am in total agreement with you on the importance of context and on the stupidity currently rampaging through the West. The idea currently being pushed by the PC types in the West is that the word, whatever it may be, is the only and most reliable indicator of a person's very deepest beliefs and character. That's why a throwaway comment, even a joke, can now end a person's career or even land them in gaol. Indeed the madness is now so great that the son of a person who once used a certain word can be punished (https://www.charlotteobserver.com/sports/nascar-auto-racing/thatsracin/article217540295.html). How long before the infection spreads to Hong Kong? That's why I hope this portion at least of Mr Haden's suit fails.

Reply
Ch’ü Yuan
2/3/2019 05:13:13 am

Have to weigh in here, sir, that gender appropriate pronouns may be seen as a manufactured debacle by some, and if one is cis gendered and of a certain era of thinking then it is certainly possible to be dismissively obtuse.

If your son or daughter was transgender, would you insist on still using their old pronouns, assert that they are just being victims and that they are being hypersensitive? Who, sir, is the absurd one?

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    Walter De Havilland was one of the last of the colonial coppers. He served 35 years in the Royal Hong Kong Police and Hong Kong Police Force. He's long retired. 

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