What does faan gwei mean?

[thomashuttenberg_17176]

I am married to an English speaking woman of Chinese decent. My Mother in Law (whose first language is Cantonese) regularly refers to me and other white people as a ‘faan gwei’. The context she is using the term usually is a negative one, but my wife doesn’t speak Cantonese so she isn’t sure if the term is negative or neutral. Can someone clarity what this term means? I’m familiar with the term Gweilo and know that it’s not a particularly polite term (foreign devil or ghost man) but I’m wondering specifically about faan gwei.

[slc_17055]

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