Talk:Ang mo/Archive 1

Archive 1

Hwong ya?

I have worked from people who I believe were from this part of China in a number of cities, and they always use the term 'Hwong ya', but I cannot find any discussion of this term on any of the linked articles. The only explanation I was ever given is that it was the word in their dialect for 'Waiguoren'. Is it very rude? 70.105.36.100 13:21, 6 June 2006 (UTC)

In the time I lived in Singapore, hardly any of the foreigners I knew took th eterm Ang Moh as derogatory or racist. It is just a word for foreigner like 'kano' in the Philippines some of my dearest singaporean friends used it in my presence, without any conotation. The fact that in yr examples it is used in films and in expressions like 'stupid ang moh' does not make it a bad word. Just as 'Canadian' is not a slur just because you can also say 'stupid canadian'. One can say "Li-Ann has an Ang-moh boyfriend". That is just to describe she has a Caucasion boyfriend and is no more derogatory than his friends saying 'he has an Asian girlfriend' --88.159.151.198 07:15, 8 September 2007 (UTC)

I don't think the analogy between 'Ang-moh' and 'Asian' is accurate. It would be more correct to say that "Li-Ann has an Ang-moh boyfriend" is no more, and no less, derogatory than "Li-Ann has a Chink boyfriend" or "Li-Ann has a Nigger boyfriend". —Preceding unsigned comment added by 203.116.98.10 (talk) 14:44, 24 January 2008 (UTC)

Agree, I lived in Singapore for 3 years studying (I'm Indian btw) and all the caucasian students I knew found the term, at best, mildly amusing, but most found it annoying or demeaning, a couple were REALLY upset when called it by strangers or friends. But what they all had in common was an understanding of it's origins and they all saw it as an inherently racist term, even if the speakers were not using it in that context. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 137.92.97.111 (talk) 05:06, 14 April 2008 (UTC)

I can't believe people would try and portray this term as non-racist! i spend i year in Singapore on exchange, and invariably the term was used either as a neutral term or, more commonly, as an insult. The local media play this down of course, but it's as bad a term as any other racial slur. 130.56.32.2 (talk) 05:37, 25 October 2008 (UTC)

I just came from Singapore visited a friend who lives there for couple of years, and she has local friends. Ang Mo is not derogatory anymore. I had fun calling us Ang Mos - we are white girls - and refer to other white people Ang Mo as a joke. Its kind of interesting experience of a white living in US having a special racial nick name applied to me for a change. Racial slur no longer I dont think, or not for too long, hopefully people are warmer to each other these days and less uptight about color. Gonna make me a t-shirt of that whatyou think! —Preceding unsigned comment added by 76.211.21.40 (talk) 23:57, 1 April 2009 (UTC)

Nah sorry, your "friend" is wrong, Ang Moh is used a racial insult, as a derogatory term, and yes, even a term of affection, but it is a racial label with mainly negative tones. It still is derogatory, no doubt about it. 152.91.9.124 (talk) 22:26, 2 April 2009 (UTC)

agree with above comment, its negative and nasty, no doubt about it. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 137.92.97.114 (talk) 08:59, 9 April 2009 (UTC)

[Untitled message]

After reading this definition on Ang Mo, I would like to say it is all wrong. Ang Mo is a proper term addressed in Hokkien historically and will remain same. In chinese it is call 洋人(yang ren) meaning western foreigners. The kou and kui (devil) are additional negative words added by displeased people in the later years but it is a street invented words and never to be tied with the original words.

Thus Ang Mo is a perfectly normal word to address white westerners in dialect and so is yang ren.

Spheredomesg (talk) 08:21, 4 March 2009 (UTC)

That is a POV push and blatantly false. The correct FULL term was Ang Moh Gui - the negative part was inherent to the term from the beginning. It is only recently that it has been dropped by the pejorative and negative aspects remain. Whilst it may be 'perfectly normal' to your POV, much as 'nigga' and 'boy' were in the american mid-west and south until the 1960's, and 'chink', 'nip' and 'gook' were in the USA and Australia until the 1970's, it still doesn't make it anything other than a negative racial label with pejorative connotations. 124.179.82.193 (talk) 12:47, 14 April 2009 (UTC)

I extremely surprised with the general stance taken by this article and think it needs to be reviewed. These days, the term "Ang moh" usually isn't used in a negative way AT ALL. It may have been derogatory in the past, but this generally isn't the case now. Now it's just a local word for "white" or "caucasian." This issue probably only arises when some people use it with a negative tone and/or context, but by and large it is NOT meant with offense intended. One can easily sound negative or racist simply by saying the words "Chinese," "Indian," or "Malay" in a negative tone/context as well. The term "Ang moh" itself is not inherently racist. I'm born in the 1980s. I think most Singaporeans from my generation will agree with me. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 150.203.223.68 (talk) 07:27, 24 June 2008 (UTC)

with respect, it doesn't matter what singaporeans think, it matters what the people it is applied to think. It's a racist term, even though it is used in a non-racist manner by many singaporeans, the same as 'jap' and 'nip' and 'chink' when used by non-east asians or 'nigger' or 'nigga' by non-blacks. 121.79.1.46 (talk) 05:38, 1 July 2008 (UTC)

Thanks User talk:121.79.1.46 I can't see how User talk:150.203.223.68 could have missed this. It's the people to whom it's applied who have say over whether it's derogatory or not... and in addition, even if some Westerners don't care about it, others might, so if User talk:150.203.223.68 and his/her Singaporean friends want to make friends with Westerners, they'd better either make a judgement call as to whether the Westerner they're dealing with is spineless and can be called whatever other people want, or avoid these sorts of terms altogether (including "foreigner/外国人/老外/洋人", all of which grant Westerners permanent out-group status).

I lived in Sibu (aka Little Foochow), Borneo in the early 80s as a half caste chinese. I was called Ah Moh Lang. When I asked what it meant I was invariably told "red haired monkey". The irony at the time by the way was supreme. The first 13 years of my life in Australia I was ching chong chinaman. Get to Sibu and I am a red haired monkey. It' so cool being mixed race sometimes.... Other people who I have asked in more recent times say ah moh lang means red haired man. Now I now that "lang" does mean man/person so he more recent translation makes sense, however the monkey translation was universal in the 80s. And it was definitely analogous to "nigger" or "kike", rather than "white person". I suspect therefore that the sense of the word, at least in some places has changed over time. I agree it does not really matter what the people saying the word think in a case like this. It matters what the target thinks.