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#Post#: 13227--------------------------------------------------
Chinamen / Chinese people
By: Kseniia Date: March 13, 2019, 1:10 am
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Hi everyone!
I thought about asking this question on itаlki but
something tells me it might not be politically correct... so I
was just wondering, maybe someone here knows the answer?
In a book I'm reading at the moment there is this line:
This was hardly what Margaret Thatcher had in mind when she
visited Peking in September 1982 to decide the future of Hong
Kong. Buoyed up with the afflatus of victory over Argentinians,
she was in no mood to be dictated by "Chinamen" — a term she was
eventually persuaded to drop.
My question is, why was she persuaded to drop the term? Is it
offensive in some way? I must say I've never seen this kind of
word formation in English (country name + "men") before, but
it's pretty normal in some other languages.
[For example, in Chinese itself you use this scheme pretty much
all the time: a Chinese person would be
中[color=blue]国[/color]人 (zhōngguórén),
人 means "person", 中国 by itself means
"China" (lit. "Central Country"; 国 stands for "country")
— and, say, "a foreigner" would be 外国人
(wàiguórén, "foreign country person"). Actually, you can even
hear people referring to the Chinese language not as
汉语 (hànyǔ, hàn as in "Han people") but as
中国话 (zhōngguóhuà) — there's even a
lovely song with this name by S.H.E. (but don't google the
lyrics — I've just read that, apparently, some people find the
song chauvinistic]
So, back to the question: why can't you say "Chinamen"? Do you
think the term has negative connotations? If yes, do you know
when it became offensive then, before or after 1982?
#Post#: 13228--------------------------------------------------
Re: Chinamen / Chinese people
By: Aliph Date: March 13, 2019, 2:50 am
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Interesting question, Kseniia though I never heard the term
during my one year long stay in California, a region that had an
important Chinese community.
I looked up the list of ethnic slurs on Wikipedia and found it
just crazy, colorful and surely incomplete.
As a bilingual myself I was granted two epithets that still can
stir up some rare anger in me and mostly amusement.
When I was a child, I was called by other children “mangia
patati” (potatoes eater) or “Tudeshca” (literally German) living
south of the Alps.
When I crossed the Alps to visit relatives, I got a more
colorful slur in Swiss German “Tschinggeli Moore”. Moore
obviously refers to the Moors (the dark skinned pirates of the
Mediterranean) and Tschinggeli comes from the Italian numeral
“cinque” (number 5) referring to a game that Italian migrants
used to play.
This surely contributed to raise my curiosity and determined my
choice of studies.
Sorry for the partly off-topic association. English speaking
people on the board will answer your initial question.
#Post#: 13229--------------------------------------------------
Re: Chinamen / Chinese people
By: SuKi Date: March 13, 2019, 3:20 am
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It's very, very outdated. It sounds like something from the
1930s, and smacks of a colonial-style 'Oh those funny little
foreign chaps'.
Here's my experience of 'Chinaman'. Not long ago, I used the
word to refer to someone, in a slightly jokey,
mock-old-fashioned way. My kids looked at me in horror, and
said 'Mother, you CANNOT say that word'.
#Post#: 13231--------------------------------------------------
Re: Chinamen / Chinese people
By: Kseniia Date: March 13, 2019, 5:34 am
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@Sofia, your off-topics are always welcome (though I must say
that your comment is actually quite relevant). Thanks for
mentioning that article on ethnophaulisms, I've found some new
information there. And isn't it interesting that this "potato
eaters" slur is so widespread? In Russia some people still use a
similar slightly derogatory term for Belarusians — though, to be
honest, I've never quite understood what's so special with
eating potatoes. One question if I may (and if it's not too
personal): do people have to be dark-skinned to be called
"Tschinggeli Moore"?
@SuKi, ah, I see, thanks very much for the answer! So, since it
sounds like something from the 1930s (and not from the 1980s),
it was probably a deliberate choice of words. Well, good to
know.
#Post#: 13232--------------------------------------------------
Re: Chinamen / Chinese people
By: Nikola Date: March 13, 2019, 7:11 am
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I came across the word "Chinaman" in The Remains of the Day by
Kazuo Ishiguro. A large part of the novel is set in the 1930s.
Miss Kenton and Mr Stevens are discussing "Chinamen" as objects
(presumably statues?) and where they should be placed.
"Mr Stevens, I have just noticed something outside which puzzles
me."
"What is that, Miss Kenton?"
"Was it his lordship's wish that the Chinaman on the upstairs
landing should be exchanged with the one outside this door?"
"The Chinaman, Miss Kenton?"
...
"The Chinamen, I would suppose, were polished by someone then
replaced incorrectly."
I felt there was a playfulness to the expression but didn't know
how politically incorrect it would be considered these days.
What about the word "Englishman"? How do people from England
feel about it these days?
HTML https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=d27gTrPPAyk
#Post#: 13233--------------------------------------------------
Re: Chinamen / Chinese people
By: SuKi Date: March 13, 2019, 7:38 am
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Thatcher grew up in the 1930s, at a time when Britain still had
an empire. Her parents were Victorians. She may well not have
realised that times had changed and that it was no longer
acceptable to have this 'funny little foreign chaps' attitude to
the world.
In fact, when I wrote my first comment about the 1930s, what I
had in mind was some kind of porcelain ornament depicting a
quaint caricature with a triangular hat.
You're right that there are no parallel terms. Englishman,
Dutchman, Frenchman and so on (using the adjective) are a little
old-fashioned, but they are not derogatory.
#Post#: 13234--------------------------------------------------
Re: Chinamen / Chinese people
By: Irena Date: March 13, 2019, 8:07 am
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I've heard the word Chinaman exactly once in my life: in the
Lover (the film version of Marguerite Duras' novel; the novel
was written in French, but the movie was in English). It sounded
rather derogatory. The story takes place in Indochina (i.e.
Vietnam), and the main characters are a young French girl
(fifteen and half, as she says) from a poor family and very rich
Chinese man about twice her age. They both have contempt for
each other (she for him because he's Chinese, and he for her
because she's (a) white and (b) poor). But they're also
attracted to each other and the movie (like the novel that it's
based on) is about their sexual relationship. Anyway, at some
point, they talk about what would happen if her family found
out, and she gives a kind of contemptuous smirk and says "With a
Chinaman!" Anyway, I figured it wasn't a word that I should use.
#Post#: 13235--------------------------------------------------
Re: Chinamen / Chinese people
By: Alharacas Date: March 13, 2019, 8:46 am
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Kseniia, I was so grateful to see your post, I'm quite reluctant
to tell you I found an enormous entry on wikipedia about the
term "Chinaman". :)
HTML https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chinaman_(term)
A bit off-topic, I'm sometimes quite unsure about correct place
names in German - the other day I was wondering about Tschechei
for Czechia, which sounded fine to me (says a lot about language
use in Germany after WWII). Plus, Tschechien is a bit of a
mouthful, even to Germans. After checking on wikipedia, however,
I found it was indeed Nazi terminology, so nix on that.
If possible, it's even worse with Bohemia and Moravia, Czech
regions with German names whose history was very long and more
or less respectable - until WWII.
#Post#: 13237--------------------------------------------------
Re: Chinamen / Chinese people
By: Kseniia Date: March 13, 2019, 9:52 am
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@Alharacas, lol,
"слона-то я
и не
приметил"!
(с) Thanks a lot for the link!
@everyone, thank you all for your answers and examples!
#Post#: 13238--------------------------------------------------
Re: Chinamen / Chinese people
By: Truman Overby Date: March 13, 2019, 10:03 am
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@ Alharacas
Is it okay to call a German a Kraut? :D { Just kidding,
everyone. } I did hear this sometimes as a kid from World War 2
veterans.
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