Postby slc_17055 » July 16th, 2017 1:34 am
Hello,
Thank you for your question.
番鬼( faan1 gwai2) or 番鬼佬( faan1 gwai2 lou2) means "foreigner". Cantonese speakers usually use this term to refer to westerners. Some people believe that this term had the derogatory use because China was attacked by the foreign countries during the two world wars long time ago. But nowadays lots of Cantonese speakers simply just want to refer foreign people especially the Caucasian as 鬼佬 (gwai2 lou2) without any offensive meaning. Somehow, whether this term has the offensive connotation or not is still disputed a lot. For the word 番(faan1) itself, it simply means "foreign". Therefore people in Hong Kong call tomato as 番茄(faan1 ke2) because it is the vegetable from foreign country.
番(faan1) ~ foreign.
鬼(gwai2) ~ ghost.
佬(lou2) ~ middle age man
番(faan1)~ foreign
茄(Ke2)~ eggplant
Siuling
Team Cantoneseclass101.com