嘿！我叫雅各，我住在澳大利亚墨尔本。我每年去一次新加坡，有时候也去别的地方。我想学日文和中文。让我们互相帮助！我们能够成为朋友，不过请别叫我老外或者外国人，无论用英文或者其他语言。在互联网上没有真正意义上的外国人。 网页： http://www.jamesforsyth.net

Hi! I’m James and I live in Melbourne, Australia, and go to Singapore and beyond once a year. I would like to learn Japanese and Chinese. Let’s help each other! We can be friends, but please don’t call me a foreigner, neither in English nor in any other language. Online the term foreigner has no meaning. Homepage: http://www.jamesforsyth.net

If you want to see what I’ve been up to lately, check out http://www.lang-8.com/jamesforsyth

Blessings,

James

但是总的来说日本人对我很亲切。他们都愿意纠正我的日文.

我真希望将来我的日文水平会提高。

不好意思，我的日记有点短，因为没有什么想法。

even better:

Stephanie 23.06.06

Connotations of words are informed by their use. When the word “nigger” was first used, white people didn’t mean anything by it either. But as time went on, the USE of the word “nigger” shaped the connotation. So it is with laowai. When I walk down the street and in 15 minutes get 5 people yelling laowai at me and then sniggering about it with their friends, how does it make me feel? The people who call me “laowai” never want to make conversation. They are always passers-by, lookers-on, and they almost always have a crowd of friends with them to impress. They could yell “banana” the same way at me and eventually “banana” would become a derogatory or insulting word. Rarely has anyone said “laowai” to my face. They say it after you have walked past them. People who are our friends never call us laowai. Parents have corrected their children in front of us when their children call us laowai. White people used to think “nigger” was an okay word to use – they had to be taught not to use it. So with Chinese. My Chinese friends will insist that it is not a bad word. After I explain to them my personal experiences with the word, they tend to agree with me. When I hear the word “laowai” I hear “nigger” Never have I felt that way about any other Chinese word.
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Stephanie 23.06.06

One more comment – black people in the U.S. can call each other “nigger” and themselves “nigger” but you will never ever see them tolerate this from a white person. Why? Useage and context contribute more to the meaning of a word than its dictionary definition. Therefore the argument that “Well, foreigners in China call themselves ‘laowai’ so therefore it is not a derogatory word is misguided. By the way, has anyone come up with a corresponding insult that we laowais can respond with? I’ve tried laoshu before but Chinese people probably take this as a compliment. Oops! Did I just say something derogatory? Well, after years of being degraded and treated like an animal on the street, the anger kind builds up. Somedays it’s all I can do to keep from kicking someone in the balls.

I laughed out loud when I read this review. I hope you do too.

James

The problems I’m experiencing are exactly those experienced by this guy here.

1. Don’t call me a foreigner.
This is a huge mistake, calling white people foreigners is an insulting generality which shows your ignorance. It’s stupid inside Australia because it’s simply false, I was born here. It’s stupid in China because you fail to distinguish between people of different nationalities, and simply paint white people with the same brush: All ‘foreigners’.
2. Don’t compliment my Chinese or speculate as to how I “learnt” it.
Did you learn English to earn my compliments? No. Well, the same goes for my Chinese. On the inside of this particular compliment there is an insult: “Not many White people can speak Chinese.” Also, don’t ask me if my wife is Chinese or if I needed some other form of divine guidance. Bottom line: Westerners have the ability to speak Chinese should they wish to choose it from the myriad of languages available on this planet to speak.
3. Don’t speak to me in English.
Of course, this is dependent on circumstances. But if you’re serving me in a shop which is advertised as being a “Chinese” shop of some kind, and I’ve opened the conversation in Chinese, there’s absolutely no reason to respond in English. If you’re at a language exchange or on staff at my son’s Saturday Chinese school I would expect you to be even more understanding of this issue. Naturally at the language exchange there will be a chance to speak English, but please don’t laugh when Westerners say as little as “ni hao”.

I have met the rare Chinese person who hasn’t made any of these three blunders. Some of them have turned into great friendships. Of course, just as they have to take my 3 requirements into account there may be things which I, myself, should bear in mind and think about.