The word doesn’t bother me as much as it does other foreigners here, but after five years of constantly having it shouted at me, I’m fed up. I’ve been called “lao wai” so many times in China that I like to joke around and tell people it’s my Chinese name sometimes. Plus, when someone randomly walking by you on the street, points at you and yells “Foreigner!”, you’re not going to have the best reaction regardless of what word they use. “ Lao Wai” (老外 – lǎo wài) means “foreigner” in Chinese, but it’s not exactly the nicest way to say it. This goes hand in hand with the point above. Something tells me they didn’t like it very much, but I can guarantee they’ll do the same thing the next time they see a foreigner in China. We found a huge tour group of Chinese folks in New York City, doing their usual routine of wearing matching hats and following a flag, when I yelled to my Girlfriend… “Look! Look! Chinese people! There are Chinese people!” We pointed and giggled and then awkwardly ran away, as they do to us on a daily basis. I always wondered how Chinese people traveling abroad would feel if I did the same thing to them in my country, so one time I did. Hell, half of the fun for many Chinese people visiting big cities is to see the silly foreigners and try to sneakily take cell phone pictures of them. No bumpkin from the middle of nowhere China on their holiday in the big city is ever going to stop and ask me how long I’ve been in China or try to make any small talk for that matter. After five years, though, I’m sick of being a zoo animal. When I first came to China I thought this was quite funny, and I’d humor people by flashing the peace sign (it’s actually “V for Victory” here, because they win?) and waving back with my own very brutal version of their common greeting (“Knee-how!”). Many foreigners arrive in China and are surprised to find people constantly taking their photo (whether they agreed or not), yelling “Ha-lo!” in their face, pointing, and staring.
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