''Chinaman'' () is a term referring to a
Chinese man or person, a
Mainland Chinese national or, in some cases, a
person native to geographical East Asia or of perceived East Asian race. While the term has no negative connotations in older dictionaries and the usage of such compound terms as
Englishman
The English people are an ethnic group and nation native to England, who speak the English language, a West Germanic language, and share a common history and culture. The English identity is of Anglo-Saxon origin, when they were known in ...
,
Frenchman
The French people (french: Français) are an ethnic group and nation primarily located in Western Europe that share a common French culture, history, and language, identified with the country of France.
The French people, especially th ...
,
Dutchman,
Irishman
The Irish ( ga, Muintir na hÉireann or ''Na hÉireannaigh'') are an ethnic group and nation native to the island of Ireland, who share a common history and culture. There have been humans in Ireland for about 33,000 years, and it has been c ...
, and
Welshman are sometimes cited as unobjectionable parallels, the term is noted as having pejorative overtones by modern dictionaries. Its derogatory connotations evolved from its use in pejorative contexts regarding Chinese people and other Asians as well as its grammatical incorrectness which resembles stereotypical characterizations of Chinese accents in English-speaking associated with discrimination. While usage of the term ''Chinaman'' is nowadays strongly discouraged by
Asian American organizations,
it has also been used as a self-referential archetype by authors and artists of Asian descent.
It may have come from literal translation into English of the Chinese term for "Chinese man/person", 中國人 (''Zhōngguó rén'') = "China man/person".
Historic usage
Use in Australia
Historically, words such as ''Chinaman'', ''
Chink'' and ''
yellow
Yellow is the color between green and orange on the spectrum of light. It is evoked by light with a dominant wavelength of roughly 575585 nm. It is a primary color in subtractive color systems, used in painting or color printing. In the ...
'' have been used in
Australia to refer to
Chinese Australians
Chinese Australians () are Australians of Chinese ancestry. Chinese Australians are one of the largest groups within the global Chinese diaspora, and are the largest Asian Australian community. Per capita, Australia has more people of Chines ...
during the
Australian gold rushes and when the
White Australia Policy
The White Australia policy is a term encapsulating a set of historical policies that aimed to forbid people of non-European ethnic origin, especially Asians (primarily Chinese) and Pacific Islanders, from immigrating to Australia, starting i ...
was in force.
Use in the United States
The term ''Chinaman'' has been historically used in a variety of ways, including legal documents, literary works, geographic names, and in speech. Census records in 19th-century North America recorded Chinese men by names such as "
John Chinaman
John Chinaman was a stock caricature of a Chinese laborer seen in cartoons of the 19th century. Also referenced by Mark Twain and popular American songs of the period, John Chinaman represented, in western society, a typical persona of China. He ...
", "Jake Chinaman" or simply as "Chinaman".
Chinese American historian Emma Woo Louie commented that such names in census schedules were used when census takers could not obtain any information and that they "should not be considered to be racist in intent". One census taker in
El Dorado County
El Dorado County (), officially the County of El Dorado, is a county located in the U.S. state of California. As of the 2020 census, the population was 191,185. The county seat is Placerville. The County is part of the Sacramento- Roseville-A ...
wrote, "I found about 80 Chinese men in Spanish Canion who refused to give me their names or other information." Louie equated "John Chinaman" to "John Doe" in its usage to refer to a person whose name is not known, and added that other ethnic groups were also identified by generic terms as well, such as ''
Spaniard
Spaniards, or Spanish people, are a Romance ethnic group native to Spain. Within Spain, there are a number of national and regional ethnic identities that reflect the country's complex history, including a number of different languages, both i ...
'' and ''
Kanaka'', which refers to a
Hawaiian.
In a notable 1853 letter to
Governor of California John Bigler which challenges his proposed immigration policy toward the Chinese, restaurant owner Norman Asing, at the time a leader in
San Francisco
San Francisco (; Spanish for " Saint Francis"), officially the City and County of San Francisco, is the commercial, financial, and cultural center of Northern California. The city proper is the fourth most populous in California and 17th ...
's Chinese community, refers to himself as a "Chinaman". Addressing the governor, he writes, "Sir: I am a Chinaman, a republican, and a lover of free institutions." ''Chinaman'' was also often used in complimentary contexts, such as "after a very famous Chinaman in old
Cassiar Rush days, (who was) known & loved by whites and natives".
As the Chinese in the American West began to encounter discrimination and hostile criticism of their culture and mannerisms, the term would begin to take on negative connotations. The slogan of the
Workingman's Party
The Workingmen's Party of California (WPC) was an American labor organization, founded in 1877 and led by Denis Kearney, J.G Day, and H. L. Knight.
Organizational history
As a result of heavy unemployment from the 1873-78 national depression, ...
was "The Chinese Must Go!", coined in the 1870s before ''Chinaman'' acquired a derogatory association. The term ''
Chinaman's chance
''Chinaman's chance'' is an offensive American idiom which means that a person has little or no chance at success, synonymous with similar idioms of improbability such as ''a snowball's chance in hell'' or ''when pigs fly''. Although the origin ...
'' evolved as the Chinese began to take on dangerous jobs building the railroads or ventured to exploit mine claims abandoned by others, and later found themselves victims of injustice as accused murderers (of Chinese) would be acquitted if the only testimony against them was from other Chinese. Legal documents such as the
Geary Act
The Geary Act was a United States law that extended the Chinese Exclusion Act of 1882 by adding onerous new requirements. It was written by California Representative Thomas J. Geary and was passed by Congress on .
The law required all Chinese r ...
of 1892, which barred the entry of
Chinese people to the
United States
The United States of America (U.S.A. or USA), commonly known as the United States (U.S. or US) or America, is a country primarily located in North America. It consists of 50 states, a federal district, five major unincorporated territori ...
, referred to Chinese people both as "Chinese persons" or "Chinamen".
Use on Japanese people
The term has also been used to refer to
Japanese
Japanese may refer to:
* Something from or related to Japan, an island country in East Asia
* Japanese language, spoken mainly in Japan
* Japanese people, the ethnic group that identifies with Japan through ancestry or culture
** Japanese diaspor ...
men, despite the fact that they are not Chinese. The
Japanese
Japanese may refer to:
* Something from or related to Japan, an island country in East Asia
* Japanese language, spoken mainly in Japan
* Japanese people, the ethnic group that identifies with Japan through ancestry or culture
** Japanese diaspor ...
admiral
Tōgō Heihachirō
Marshal-Admiral Marquis , served as a '' gensui'' or admiral of the fleet in the Imperial Japanese Navy and became one of Japan's greatest naval heroes. He claimed descent from Samurai Shijo Kingo, and he was an integral part of preserving ...
, during his training in
England
England is a country that is part of the United Kingdom. It shares land borders with Wales to its west and Scotland to its north. The Irish Sea lies northwest and the Celtic Sea to the southwest. It is separated from continental Europe b ...
in the 1870s, was called "Johnny Chinaman" by his British comrades. Civil rights pioneer
Takuji Yamashita was a Japanese civil rights activist. In spite of social and legal barriers, he directly challenged three major barriers against Asians in the United States: citizenship, joining a profession, and owning land.
Biography
Yamashita was born in Yawat ...
took a case to the
United States Supreme Court
The Supreme Court of the United States (SCOTUS) is the highest court in the federal judiciary of the United States. It has ultimate appellate jurisdiction over all U.S. federal court cases, and over state court cases that involve a point o ...
in 1922 on the issue of the possibility of allowing
Japanese immigrants
The Japanese diaspora and its individual members, known as Nikkei (日系) or as Nikkeijin (日系人), comprise the Japanese emigrants from Japan (and their descendants) residing in a country outside Japan. Emigration from Japan was recorded a ...
to own land in the state of
Washington
Washington commonly refers to:
* Washington (state), United States
* Washington, D.C., the capital of the United States
** A metonym for the federal government of the United States
** Washington metropolitan area, the metropolitan area centered o ...
. Washington's attorney general, in his argument, stated that Japanese people could not fit into American society because assimilation was not possible for "the
Negro
In the English language, ''negro'' is a term historically used to denote persons considered to be of Black African heritage. The word ''negro'' means the color black in both Spanish and in Portuguese, where English took it from. The term can be ...
, the
Indian
Indian or Indians may refer to:
Peoples South Asia
* Indian people, people of Indian nationality, or people who have an Indian ancestor
** Non-resident Indian, a citizen of India who has temporarily emigrated to another country
* South Asia ...
and the Chinaman".
Use on Korean people
Mary Paik Lee
Mary Paik Lee (August 17, 1900 – February 14, 1995"California Death Index, 1940-1997," database, ''FamilySearch'' (https://familysearch.org/ark:/61903/1:1:VP3M-MY4 : 26 November 2014), Mary Paik Lee, 14 Feb 1995; Department of Public Heal ...
, a Korean immigrant who arrived with her family in San Francisco in 1906, writes in her 1990 autobiography ''Quiet Odyssey'' that on her first day of school, girls circled and hit her, chanting:
Ching Chong
"Ching chong" and "ching chang chong" are ethnic slurs and racial pejorative terms sometimes used in English to mock the Chinese language, people of Chinese ancestry, or other people of East Asian descent perceived to be Chinese. The term is a ...
, Chinaman,
Sitting on a wall.
Along came a white man,
And chopped his tail
The tail is the section at the rear end of certain kinds of animals’ bodies; in general, the term refers to a distinct, flexible appendage to the torso. It is the part of the body that corresponds roughly to the sacrum and coccyx in mammal ...
off.
A variation of this rhyme is repeated by a young boy in John Steinbeck's 1945 novel ''
Cannery Row
Cannery Row is the waterfront street bordering the city of Pacific Grove, but officially in the New Monterey section of Monterey, California. It was the site of a number of now-defunct sardine canning factories. The last cannery closed in 1973 ...
'' in mockery of a Chinese man. In this version, "wall" is replaced with "rail", and the phrase "chopped his tail off" is changed to "chopped off his tail":
Ching Chong, Chinaman,
Sitting on a rail.
Along came a white man,
And chopped off his tail.
Literary use
Literary and musical works have used the term as well. In "Disgraceful Persecution of a Boy", an 1870 essay written by
Mark Twain, a sympathetic and often flattering account about the circumstances of Chinese people in 19th-century United States society, the term is used throughout the body of the essay to refer to Chinese people. Over a hundred years later, the term would again be used during the Civil Rights era in the context of racial injustice in literary works. The term was used in the title of Chinese American writer
Frank Chin
Frank Chin (born February 25, 1940) is an American author and playwright. He is considered to be one of the pioneers of Asian-American theatre.
Life and career
Frank Chin was born in Berkeley, California on February 25, 1940; until the age of s ...
's first play, ''
The Chickencoop Chinaman'', written in 1972,
and also in the translated English title of
Bo Yang's work of political and cultural criticism ''The Ugly Chinaman and the Crisis of Chinese Culture''.
During the 1890s
detective fiction often portrayed Chinese characters as
stereotypically
In social psychology, a stereotype is a generalized belief about a particular category of people. It is an expectation that people might have about every person of a particular group. The type of expectation can vary; it can be, for example ...
conniving, tending to use the term "Chinaman" to refer to them.
This occurred to such a great extent that it prompted writers of the 1920s and 1930s (during Britain's
Golden Age of Detective Fiction
The Golden Age of Detective Fiction was an era of classic murder mystery novels of similar patterns and styles, predominantly in the 1920s and 1930s.
The Golden Age proper is, in practice, usually taken to refer to a type of fiction which was pre ...
) to eschew stereotypical characterizations, either by removing them from their stories entirely (as suggested by
Ronald Knox
Ronald Arbuthnott Knox (17 February 1888 – 24 August 1957) was an English Catholic priest, theologian, author, and radio broadcaster. Educated at Eton and Balliol College, Oxford, where he earned a high reputation as a classicist, Knox wa ...
in his "Ten Commandments" of Detective Fiction) or by recasting them in non-stereotypical roles. This "Rule of Rule Subversion"
became an important part of Golden Age detective fiction, challenging readers to think more critically about characters using only information given in the story.
In musical works, the term appears in
Mort Shuman
Mortimer Shuman (12 November 1938 – 2 November 1991) was an American singer, pianist and songwriter, best known as co-writer of many 1960s rock and roll hits, including "Viva Las Vegas". He also wrote and sang many songs in French, such as " ...
's 1967 translation of the
Jacques Brel song "Jacky": "Locked up inside my opium den / Surrounded by some Chinamen." (The phrase used in Brel's original French lyric was ''vieux Chinois'', meaning "old Chinese".) The term was also used in the hit 1974 song ''
Kung Fu Fighting
"Kung Fu Fighting" is a disco song by Jamaican vocalist Carl Douglas, written by Douglas and produced by British-Indian musician Biddu. It was released in 1974 as the first single from his debut album, '' Kung Fu Fighting and Other Great Lo ...
'', by
Carl Douglas
Carlton George Douglas (born 10 May 1942) is a Jamaican recording artist based in the UK who is best known for the 1974 disco single "Kung Fu Fighting".
Early life
Carlton George Douglas was born in Kingston, Colony of Jamaica. He later liv ...
; the song's first verse begins "They were funky Chinamen from funky
Chinatown."
Modern usage
The term ''Chinaman'' is described as being offensive in most modern dictionaries and studies of usage.
''The New Fowler's Modern English Usage'' considers ''Chinaman'' to have a "derogatory edge",
''The Cambridge Guide to English Usage'' describes it as having "derogatory overtones",
and Philip Herbst's reference work ''The Color of Words'' notes that it may be "taken as patronizing".
This distinguishes it from similar ethnic names such as ''Englishman'' and ''Irishman'', which are not used pejoratively.
In its original sense, ''Chinaman'' has been almost entirely absent from British English, particularly before 1965. However, ''chinaman'' (not capitalized) remained in use in an alternative sense to describe a
left-arm unorthodox spin
Left-arm unorthodox spin, also known as slow left-arm wrist-spin, is a type of spin bowling in the sport of cricket. Left-arm unorthodox spin bowlers use wrist spin to spin the ball, and make it deviate, or 'turn' from left to right after pitchin ...
bowler in
cricket
Cricket is a bat-and-ball game played between two teams of eleven players on a field at the centre of which is a pitch with a wicket at each end, each comprising two bails balanced on three stumps. The batting side scores runs by str ...
, although the use of the term is declining due to the racial overtones associated with it.
[Andrew Wu (March 26, 2017]
Australia v India Test series 2017: Does cricket really need to continue using the term 'chinaman'?
''The Sydney Morning Herald
''The Sydney Morning Herald'' (''SMH'') is a daily compact newspaper published in Sydney, New South Wales, Australia, and owned by Nine. Founded in 1831 as the ''Sydney Herald'', the ''Herald'' is the oldest continuously published newspaper ...
''. Retrieved March 23, 2019.[Rubaid Iftekhar (June 25, 2020]
The 'Chinaman mystery': Racism and left-arm leg-spin
''The Business Standard
''The Business Standard'' is a Bangladeshi daily newspaper published in English and Bengali. The newspaper was founded by The Horizon Media and Publication Ltd and is based in Dhaka, the capital of Bangladesh. The newspaper provides detailed ...
''. Retrieved March 21, 2021. Most British dictionaries see the term ''Chinaman'' as old-fashioned, and this view is backed up by data from the
British National Corpus
The British National Corpus (BNC) is a 100-million-word text corpus of samples of written and spoken English from a wide range of sources. The corpus covers British English of the late 20th century from a wide variety of genres, with the intention ...
.
According to ''Merriam-Webster's Dictionary of English Usage'', in American English ''Chinaman'' is most often used in a "knowing" way, either satirically or to evoke the word's historical connotations. It acknowledges, however, that there is still some usage that is completely innocent.
In addition, Herbst notes in ''The Color of Words'' that despite ''Chinaman'' negative connotations, its use is not usually intended as malicious.
Controversy
The use of the term ''Chinaman'' in public platforms and as names of geographical locations has been the occasion of several public controversies in recent times.
On April 9, 1998, television
sitcom
A sitcom, a portmanteau of situation comedy, or situational comedy, is a genre of comedy centered on a fixed set of characters who mostly carry over from episode to episode. Sitcoms can be contrasted with sketch comedy, where a troupe may use ...
show ''
Seinfeld'' aired an
episode
An episode is a narrative unit within a larger dramatic work or documentary production, such as a series intended for radio, television or streaming consumption.
The noun ''episode'' is derived from the Greek term ''epeisodion'' (), meaning th ...
in which a character referred to
opium as "the Chinaman's nightcap". The episode prompted many Asian American viewers, including author
Maxine Hong Kingston, to send letters of protest. In her letter, Kingston wrote that the term is "equivalent to
nigger
In the English language, the word ''nigger'' is an ethnic slur used against black people, especially African Americans. Starting in the late 1990s, references to ''nigger'' have been progressively replaced by the euphemism , notably in cases ...
s for
blacks
Black is a racialized classification of people, usually a political and skin color-based category for specific populations with a mid to dark brown complexion. Not all people considered "black" have dark skin; in certain countries, often in ...
and
kike
The word ''kike'' () is an ethnic slur for a Jew.
Etymology
The earliest recorded use of the word dates to the 1880s. s for
Jew
Jews ( he, יְהוּדִים, , ) or Jewish people are an ethnoreligious group and nation originating from the Israelites Israelite origins and kingdom: "The first act in the long drama of Jewish history is the age of the Israelites""T ...
s". Media watchdog Media Action Network for Asian Americans (MANAA) called on
NBC
The National Broadcasting Company (NBC) is an American English-language commercial broadcast television and radio network. The flagship property of the NBC Entertainment division of NBCUniversal, a division of Comcast, its headquarters are l ...
, broadcasting network for the show, to issue a public apology. NBC did not issue an apology, but it removed the offending term from the episode in the episode's rerun in May 1998. NBC's executive vice president for broadcast standards and content policy sent MANAA a letter stating that the network never intended to offend. MANAA was pleased with the studio's response despite the lack of an apology, and Kingston, while disappointed there was no apology, was pleased that the term was removed from the episode.
On July 7, 1998,
Canada
Canada is a country in North America. Its ten provinces and three territories extend from the Atlantic Ocean to the Pacific Ocean and northward into the Arctic Ocean, covering over , making it the world's second-largest country by tot ...
's
province
A province is almost always an administrative division within a country or state. The term derives from the ancient Roman '' provincia'', which was the major territorial and administrative unit of the Roman Empire's territorial possessions ou ...
of
Alberta
Alberta ( ) is one of the thirteen provinces and territories of Canada. It is part of Western Canada and is one of the three prairie provinces. Alberta is bordered by British Columbia to the west, Saskatchewan to the east, the Northwest Ter ...
changed the name of a peak in the
Rocky Mountains
The Rocky Mountains, also known as the Rockies, are a major mountain range and the largest mountain system in North America. The Rocky Mountains stretch in straight-line distance from the northernmost part of western Canada, to New Mexico ...
from "Chinaman's Peak" to "
Ha Ling Peak" due to pressure from the province's large Chinese community. The new name was chosen in honour of the railway labourer who scaled the peak's -high summit in 1896 to win a $50 bet to commemorate all his fellow Chinese railway labourers. Ha Ling himself had named it "Chinaman's Peak" on behalf of all his fellow Chinese railway workers.
In 2001, the ''
Chicago Sun-Times
The ''Chicago Sun-Times'' is a daily newspaper published in Chicago, Illinois, United States. Since 2022, it is the flagship paper of Chicago Public Media, and has the second largest circulation among Chicago newspapers, after the ''Chicago ...
'' was chastised by William Yashino, Midwest director of the
Japanese American Citizens League, for using the term ''Chinaman'' in two of its columns. Yashino wrote, in a letter to the editor on May 16, 2001, that the term is derogatory and demeaning to Chinese Americans and Asian Americans, and that it marginalizes these communities and inflames public sentiment.
In March 2007, media mogul
Ted Turner
Robert Edward "Ted" Turner III (born November 19, 1938) is an American entrepreneur, television producer, media proprietor, and philanthropist. He founded the Cable News Network (CNN), the first 24-hour cable news channel. In addition, he fo ...
used the term in a public speech before the
Bay Area Council
The Bay Area Council is a business association in San Francisco, founded in 1945, and dedicated to economic development in the San Francisco Bay Area. At its inception in the post WWII years, members included Wells Fargo, Bank of America, the ...
of
San Francisco
San Francisco (; Spanish for " Saint Francis"), officially the City and County of San Francisco, is the commercial, financial, and cultural center of Northern California. The city proper is the fourth most populous in California and 17th ...
,
California
California is a state in the Western United States, located along the Pacific Coast. With nearly 39.2million residents across a total area of approximately , it is the most populous U.S. state and the 3rd largest by area. It is also the m ...
. Community leaders and officials objected to his use of the term, and immediately called for an apology. In a statement released by his spokesman on March 13, 2007, Turner apologized for having used the term, stating that he was unaware that the term was derogatory. Vincent Pan, director of the organization
Chinese for Affirmative Action Chinese for Affirmative Action (CAA) is a San Francisco-based advocacy organization. Founded in 1969, its initial goals were equality of access to employment and the creation of job opportunities for Chinese Americans. The group broadened its missio ...
, said it was "a bit suspect" for someone involved in domestic and world politics like Turner to be unaware that the term is derogatory. Yvonne Lee, a former commissioner of the
U.S. Civil Rights Commission, said the apology was the first step, but wanted Turner to agree to further "dialogue between different communities".
On April 11, 2008, golf announcer
Bobby Clampett
Robert Daniel Clampett Jr. (born April 22, 1960) is an American television golf analyst, golf course architect, writer, and professional golfer, who played on the PGA Tour from 1980 to 1995. Clampett began playing on the Champions Tour in April ...
apologized for referring to golfer
Liang Wen-Chong as "the Chinaman" during the
Masters golf tournament at
Augusta National Golf Club
Augusta National Golf Club, sometimes referred to as Augusta or the National, is a golf club in Augusta, Georgia, United States. Unlike most private clubs which operate as non-profits, Augusta National is a for-profit corporation, and it does n ...
. Clampett, working the Internet broadcast of
Amen Corner, made the comment after Liang missed the cut. According to the ''
St. Louis Post-Dispatch
The ''St. Louis Post-Dispatch'' is a major regional newspaper based in St. Louis, Missouri, serving the St. Louis metropolitan area. It is the largest daily newspaper in the metropolitan area by circulation, surpassing the ''Belleville News-De ...
'', Clampett was taken off the broadcast after the comment.
![DAAT](https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/2/2b/DAAT.jpg)
In 2010, the
Pan Asian Repertory Theatre
The Pan Asian Repertory Theatre is a New York City-based theatre group that explores the Asian-American experience and provides professional opportunities for Asian-American artists to collaborate. Pan-Asian was founded by Tisa Chang and Ernest A ...
released a statement explaining their decision to produce a play by Lauren Yee titled ''Ching Chong Chinaman'', a term which has at times been used in doggerel verse with racist overtones. Artistic Producing Director Tisa Chang explained that "''Ching Chong Chinaman'' takes its controversial title from the late 19th century pejorative jingle and uses irony and satire to reverse prejudicial attitudes towards Asians and other outsiders."
Children's book author and illustrator
Dr. Seuss
Theodor Seuss Geisel (;["Seuss"](_blank)
'' yellow
Yellow is the color between green and orange on the spectrum of light. It is evoked by light with a dominant wavelength of roughly 575585 nm. It is a primary color in subtractive color systems, used in painting or color printing. In the ...
man with a
queue __NOTOC__
Queue () may refer to:
* Queue area, or queue, a line or area where people wait for goods or services
Arts, entertainment, and media
*''ACM Queue'', a computer magazine
* ''The Queue'' (Sorokin novel), a 1983 novel by Russian author ...
and
chopsticks
Chopsticks ( or ; Pinyin: ''kuaizi'' or ''zhu'') are shaped pairs of equal-length sticks of Chinese origin that have been used as kitchen and eating utensils in most of East and Southeast Asia for over three millennia. They are held in the do ...
in his 1937 book ''
And to Think That I Saw It on Mulberry Street
''And to Think That I Saw It on Mulberry Street'' is Theodor Seuss Geisel's first Children's literature, children's book published under the pen name Dr. Seuss. First published by Vanguard Press in 1937, the story follows a boy named Marco, who ...
''. The rest of the characters in the book have white skin and apparent eyes. It was initially changed to "Chinese man" and his queue and bright skin color was removed, but the controversy ensued. In March 2021, Dr. Seuss's estate announced that ''Mulberry Street'' was one of six Dr. Seuss books that would no longer be published due
insensitive portrayals. Multiple examples of other cartoons widely considered to contain
anti-Asian racism by Dr. Seuss can be found in his banned books and political cartoons.
See also
*
Chinaman's chance
''Chinaman's chance'' is an offensive American idiom which means that a person has little or no chance at success, synonymous with similar idioms of improbability such as ''a snowball's chance in hell'' or ''when pigs fly''. Although the origin ...
*
Ching chong
"Ching chong" and "ching chang chong" are ethnic slurs and racial pejorative terms sometimes used in English to mock the Chinese language, people of Chinese ancestry, or other people of East Asian descent perceived to be Chinese. The term is a ...
*
Chink
*
Gweilo
''Gweilo'' or (, pronounced ) is a common Cantonese slang term for Westerners. In the absence of modifiers, it refers to white people and has a history of racially deprecatory and pejorative use. Cantonese speakers frequently use to refer to ...
*
List of ethnic slurs
*
Shina (word)
is a largely archaic Japanese name for China. The word was originally used neutrally in both the Chinese and Japanese languages, but came to be perceived as derogatory by the Chinese during the course of the Sino-Japanese Wars. As a result, ...
*
Chinaman (politics)
Chinaman is an epithet for political mentors and backers that entered the lexicon in the politics of Chicago, Illinois, U.S., in the 1900s and is still in use today. An example of the use of the term appeared in the January 27, 2004 ''Chicago Sun ...
References
Further reading
*
*
*
*
*
*
*
*
*
External links
*
*
{{DEFAULTSORT:Chinaman (Term)
Asian-American issues
Anti-Chinese sentiment
English words
Anti–East Asian slurs