The term
gwái () is an adjective that can be used to express hate and deprecation, an example being the locals' expression of their hatred towards the Japanese during their occupation of Hong Kong in
World War II with the same
gwái. It conveys a general bad and negative feeling but is a somewhat obsolete and archaic/old-fashioned term nowadays and other more modern terms have largely replaced
gwái for similarly negative meanings. Cantonese people sometimes call each other
sēui gwái (), which means
bad person, though more often than not it is applied affectionately, similar to "
Hey, bitch!" in English when used affectionately. Nowadays, Cantonese speakers often refer to non-Chinese people by their ethnicity.
Gwáilóu is often considered to be an acceptable generic racial term for Westerners. Also, some members of the Hong Kong community with European ancestry (particularly those with limited or zero Cantonese fluency) are indifferent to the term, and those who believe that the best way to defang a word intended as a "slur" is to embrace it, and use gweilo to refer to non-Chinese in Hong Kong.
Gwailóu has, in some instances, been recognised as simply referring to white foreigners in South East Asia and now appears on
Oxford Dictionaries defined as such, although non-white foreigners are not
gwáilóu. While
gwáilóu is used by some Cantonese speakers in informal speech, another alternative term the sound of which has several meanings
sāi yàhn () is now used as well, particularly if the conversation involves a non-Chinese person. Homonyms - ie words that sound the same or almost the same depending on the tone - to
sai yan include references to female genitalia or boasting so
sai yan is not necessarily a polite alternative to
gwai lou. A neutral alternative would be ‘foreign person’, pronounced
ngoi gwok yan. In response to some complaints, the
Canadian Broadcast Standards Council ruled that: == Related terms ==