Expat vs. Foreigner: A Discussion of the Terms and Usage G. Benjamin White (白班哲明) TransWorld University (環球科技大學)
[email protected] Abstract Alastair Pennycook in his 1998 book, English and the discourses of Colonialism talked about the term expat(riate) as used by a certain group of people living in another country. He found the term full of colonial discourses. He also saw it as a word being used by certain people as a way to take from the local population the ability to define them as outsiders. All languages contain a term for this purpose, Chinese has waiguoren (外國人). Studies completed in Japan looking at foreign English teachers have also looked at these terms and how they are viewed by this group of people. Unfortunately, not much has been added to the literature looking at this issue in Taiwan. It is unfortunate, as many foreigners have lived and continue to live in Taiwan. This paper, which came about through thinking about these other works and a larger study being completed looking at foreign English teachers in Taiwan, will try to add to the literature. The opinions of the term expat(riate) and foreigner in Taiwan by the participants will be discussed along with the use of the terms in the English daily Taipei Times in stories dealing with Taiwan. Introduction “You know what you are? You're an expatriate. Why don't you live in New York?” (Hemingway, 1926, p.120) This is what Bill Gordan says to Jack Barnes, who is “An expatriate newspaper man” in 1920s Paris. (p.119) The term expatriate (or the shorten form expat) has only been used since the early twentieth century to mean someone who is living outside of his or her own country voluntarily, before that time it was used to describe a person who had been banished from his or her country. It is a common expression used by (white) foreigners living in Taiwan as a way to describe themselves. However Chinese, like all languages, already has a term for these types of people, it is 外 國 人 (waiguoren). There are questions behind the meaning of the term expat and its use by foreigners living in Taiwan and other places (e.g., Japan, Korea, Hong Kong). In 2004 the author1 read Pennycook's (1998) excellent book, English and the discourses of Colonialism. The book was very influential to someone who had just started to teach 1 This term will be used in the paper in place of “I” to describe myself. White, 1
English in Asia. Early in the book, he used the term “expatriates”. (p.24) In the endnotes he gave a good discussion of the term: The term 'expatriate' itself is an interesting one, on the one hand distinguishing a certain group of people clearly from 'immigrants' and other darker-skinned arrivals, and on the other locating their identity not as 'foreigners' or 'outsiders' in a host community (as to the annoyance of many 'expats', do many local language descriptions: Japanese Gaijin, Chinese) waiguoren, Cantonese Guailo) but rather as people whose identity is defined by a decontextualized English/American etc. person overseas. Being an 'expatriate' locates one not as an outsider in a particular community but as a permanent insider who happens for the moment to be elsewhere. The very use of term puts into play a host of significant discourses. (p.219) After reading the book, the author begun to look at the use of the term in Taiwan. There was always a potential for deeper research into the use of the term, especially in Taiwan. However other research interests took precedent. Later, while teaching a class dealing with Language and Culture, two studies looking at foreign English Teachers in Japan were found and read. Both studies looked at the term in Japan for foreigner (gaijin) and what the participants thought of the word. It was at the same time that a larger study looking at the lives of foreign English teachers in Taiwan was considered and started. From the data collection and analysis, information that would fit into a paper, this one, dealing with the discussion of the two terms was developed. Taiwan, unlike Korea or Japan, has a long history of foreigners arriving on the island to live. In the seventeenth century the Dutch and Spanish arrived. It is due to this early and continuing contact with foreigners that has made Taiwan today, as the author believes, (as compared to Korea and Japan) a much more welcoming place for foreigners. This sadly has not always been the case. In the late nineteenth century George Mackay arrived on Formosa White, 2
(Taiwan) to preach Christianity. “Foreigners were not such a curiosity in Tamsui as in the inland towns...occasionally Mackay could hear the now familiar words of contempt - “Ugly barbarian” - “Foreign devil.” (MacGregor, d.u., 10-11) This paper is the author's first attempt to look at the use of the word expat(riate) verses foreigner in Taiwan. It will also look at the opinions of foreigners in Taiwan and Japan to the use of the term. In addition, the use of the terms in the Taipei Times will be discussed. Part of the discussion will come from data collected on a larger study dealing with the lives of foreign English teachers in Taiwan. The first part of the paper will give some etymology of the terms. Etymology of Expat(riate) and Foreigner Expat is the shorter version of the word expatriate. Expatriate comes from the French word expatrier which breaks out as ex- (out of) and patrie (native land). It was first seen in 1768. The noun dates from 1818 and meant 'one who has been banished.' In the early twentieth century, the term changed into its current meaning, 'one who chooses to live abroad'. The specific term expat was first used in 1962 and Merriam-Webster (Online) states that the word expat is chiefly a British term. Foreigner has a much longer history. It was first used in the early fifteenth century. The word is made up of two parts foreign (which was used first in the late fourteenth century to mean "not in one's own land") and the suffix -er (which when added to words can make them nouns). Together they mean a person who is not native to the place that he or she is located at that moment. (Merriam-Webster Online; Etymology Online)2 The term for foreigner in Mandarin (Chinese) is 外國人 (waiguoren). The word is made up of three characters and is easily split. 外 (wai) means outside, 國 (guo) means country, and 人(ren) means person. When put together the literal translation is outside country person. 2 Please see references for a detail description of the different sources for this part of the paper. White, 3
Participants An online questionnaire with forty-two questions was created using Google Docs. Twenty-five were four-point Likert Scale questions and the others were multiple choice and open ended questions for demographics and other general information. The questionnaire was posted, in late 2010, to the web along with a consent form and additional information on the study. A link to the study was posted to Forumosa (forumosa.com), which is an online message board created by and for foreigners (expats) living in or interested in Taiwan. It was considered the best place to find participants for this study. The link to the questionnaire was active for about two weeks. By submitting the questionnaire the participants agreed to allow the data to be used. All questions on questionnaire were required, in order to ensure uniformity in the numbers for each question. At the end of the two weeks, twenty people had completed the survey. Two similar studies in Japan had sixteen participants (Rennie, 1993, p.10) and sixty-seven participants (Scully, 2001, p.13). The ages of the participants ranged from twenty-three to forty-five years old with the age of thirty-six being the medium age. The participants had been in Taiwan for a period of between four months and twenty-one years. The medium amount of time was interestingly seven years. This is the same amount of time as the author. Each participant was also asked how much longer the participant planned on staying in Taiwan. All but three (15%) gave an answer that ranged from 'unsure' to 'forever' (one (5%) participant is in the process of becoming a citizen of Taiwan). The other three participants stated that they plan to leave in the next 3 years (all three had been in Taiwan for less than 3 years). Six nationalities are represented in the study: American (30%), Canadian (25%), New Zealander (10%), South African (10%); British (10%); Australian (10%); and Irish (5%). Nine (45%) of the participants work in a cram school. Three (15%) are self-employed, one White, 4
(5%) is a publisher, with the rest (35%) working in an elementary school, a junior high school or a senior high school. Data Relevant to this Paper Twenty-five Likert Scale questions were developed that dealt with several aspects of the lives of the participants. The scale used was from 1 (strongly disagree) to 4 (strongly agree). A four-point scale was used as opposed to a five-point scale (neither agree nor disagree) as the author wanted the participants to fall on one side of the fence and not ride the fence. Two of the questions fit into this paper. Likert Question 7 “I do not like the term “ 外國人 ” (waiguoren) [foreigner].” and Likert Question 8 “I use the term expat when talking about myself.”. Table 1 shows the breakdown of the answers. Table 1: Breakdown of Answers to Likert Questions 7 & 8 Number of Responses^ Question
Average
SD*
SD
D
A
SA
7
2.9
1.17
4
2
3
8
8
2.4
1.23
6
6
2
6
*Standard Deviation. ^ S = Strongly; D = Disagree; A = Agree
The average answer to the first question was 2.9 (slightly disagree), but fourteen participants (70%) answered agreed or strongly agreed. In the second question the average was 2.4 (disagree). In this case only eight participants (40%) agreed or strongly agreed. It is interesting to see a change of six participants in the answers to the two questions. Two of the participants (10%) went from the strongly disagree/disagree column in question 7 to the strongly agree/agree column in question 8. This means that eight participants (40%) went the other way in their answers. This is interesting for it would seem that someone who has a problem with the term waiguoren would use expat when talking about themselves and those
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who didn't have a problem with the word would most likely use the term expat less. One other item of interest came from the data analysis. One participant (5%) went from strongly disagree (question 7) to strongly agree (question 8). Another participant (5%) went the other way with an answer of strongly agree (question 7) to strongly disagree (question 8). Future studies should include an interview to learn more about the reasons for the changes in the answers. Four (20%) of the participants answered “strongly agree” to both questions, which would seem to follow logic. If one had a problem with the term waiguoren they would be incline to use expat. Part of the data collection included a part dealing with the participants top three bad parts of living in Taiwan. Several people discussed issues that were classified as xenophobia and are worth a discussion in regards to this issue. A thirty-five year old Canadian female stated that something bad about Taiwan is, “Ignorance from people who giggle at the "waiguoren" when I walk into a shop and don't want to help me.” She was one of the four participants who answered “strongly agree” to both questions discussed above. She self-reported the ability to speak Chinese and has lived in Taiwan for 10 years. It seems interesting that she would still have these problems today. However, the first thing that people would notice would be her “foreignness” before they would know if she spoke Chinese. If her ability in Chinese is good, it would be frustrating to have this happen, as one has taken the time to learn the language, but is assumed to not speak Chinese. This would lead to a dislike of the term foreigner and the desire to use the term expat as this person would feel that she has taken the time to try to become more of an insider. Another participant, who answered “strongly agree” to both of the questions above, stated, “Being defined by my race/nationality” was a bad part about living in Taiwan. This participant was a thirty-nine year old American female. She has been in Taiwan for seven White, 6
plus years, but reported that she didn't speak Chinese. This same participant also stated that another bad item included “Xenophobic government and business practices.” Again it it likely that through these bad interactions with the culture that the person would want to define herself using the term expat over the Chinese, waiguoren. Comparison to Studies from Japan Two similar studies to the author's larger study were completed in Japan. The author believes that it is important to discuss the aspects found in those studies and to show how they relate to what was found for this paper. In order to understand more about the term gaijin, Japanese for foreigner, a Taiwanese lecturer, who also spoke Japanese and English was asked to explain the term and its usage. “[T]he meaning of 外 人 has turned slightly to alien with negative intentions. It especially means outsider.” (J. Gao, personal communication, February 1, 2010). Both Scully (2001) and Rennie (1993) discuss the term gaijin in their papers on foreigners in Japan. Rennie (1993) in fact devotes twenty pages (about a quarter of the entire paper) looking at the term gaijin and its role in Japan. Rennie (1993) admits that “Gaijin was the first word I learned in Japanese....” (p. 44) He seems shocked that Japanese would have a term to classify people (as again all languages do) and seems shocked to learn that it meant “outside person”. (p.44) He goes further to state “I consider it significant and unfortunate that the Japanese should have chosen to label foreigners with a term that emphasizes alienating them from the in-group.” (p.45) He does thankfully state, “Still, I recognize that there has to be some term to refer to non-Japanese, and that gaijin must often be used in this neutral sense.” (p.45) The author says thankfully as the first quote shows the need to take away from Japanese the ability to call someone an outsider, which fits into Pennycook's (1998) discussion of the use of the word “expat”, “Being an 'expatriate' locates one not as an outsider in a particular community but as a White, 7
permanent insider who happens for the moment to be elsewhere.” (p.219) Scully (2001) stated that “The great majority (90%) of JET participants knew the word “Gaijin” before they moved to Japan: it is often the first word learned by a foreign visitor.” (p.19) Scully (2001) discuses that the word's meaning (person from outside) and found that “Just over two-thirds of the respondents (46) reported feeling annoyed [by gaijin]” (p.19). Scully (2001) had one participant, who hated the word so much that it has had an affect on her opinion of Japanese people. Another participant didn't care about the word, since it followed him all around. This would seem to follow what was found in this study, where there was a spread in the answers to the Likert questions about the opinions of and the use of the terms. Rennie's (1993) interviews with the participants found that the participants could give situations in which gaijin had been used in a derogatory matter. (pp.45-6) Similarly in this study the two participants who reported “strongly agree” to both the Likert scale questions gave examples of xenophobia in Taiwan. It is possible that through these xenophobic experiences the connotation of the term waiguoren could have negative aspects. It is likely that discussing deeper with each participant more examples could emerge and the thinking of the terms could change. The use of the terms in the Taipei Times During the development of this paper, the author was interested in seeing how the terms were used by an English newspaper published in Taiwan. As a result, starting in early January 2011, searches were completed at www.taipeitimes.com (the online site for the English newspaper the Taipei Times) looking at the use of the word expat(riate) and foreigner, in stories from Taiwan. The Taipei Times was chosen over The China Post (the other English daily) as the author believes the Taipei Times to be the better paper and wanted to focus on one newspaper in order to make the comparison between the stories easier. The paper's search White, 8
function only allows for searches within three months of the date of the search. A few examples are discussed below:3 “Government set to erect monument for expatriate heroes.” This article discusses the idea of building a monument to people who have come to Taiwan and have made it a better place. The list is said to possibly include 3,000 names, however all of the names included in the article were westerners. This fits in nicely to the discussion of the use of the word from Pennycook (1998), where he stated, “The term 'expatriate'..., on the one hand distinguishing a certain group of people clearly from 'immigrants' and other darker-skinned arrivals”. (p.219) “Council of Labor Affairs to launch '3K' job security.” This article discussed the idea of helping Taiwanese working in dirty and dangerous jobs. In it the following was found: “Currently, about 187,000 foreigners are employed as industrial workers and mainly do jobs that are known as '3K' – that is dirty, dangerous and strenuous.” It is a safe assumption that most if not all of the foreigners would be the “other darker-skinned arrival” (Pennycook, 1998, p.219). It is telling that in these two articles were written four days apart and that the editor chose the use of the word “expat” when discussing white foreigners, but “foreigner” when discussing non-white foreigners. Which shows well what Pennycook (1998) discussed in his book. Another example is the use of the term expatriate as it described a Swiss man who owns a shop in Taipei, “From A to Zakka”. In it the owner (again assumed to be white) is described as “a Swiss expatriate.” Two stories showed different uses of the words by people quoted in stories. In the “The Vinyl Word” Wu-Bai (owner of a bar) was quoted, “The crowd is a mix of locals and expats who don’t have to sit down to drink.” Another article “EDITORIAL : Ban the ‘H bomb’ in 3 Please see references for a detail description of the different sources for this part of the paper. White, 9
politics” a member of a political party was quoted “It’s only foreigners complaining and it is because they don’t understand our culture and language.” The author chose to show these two quotes as they give a small insight to the use of the terms by people in Taiwan. In this part of the paper, the author is not trying to be critical of the newspaper. However it is interesting to see how the term is used in different stories (all written between November 30, 2010 and February 26, 2011). Further study could be done in looking at the use of the term in other English newspapers around Asia. It would also be interesting to see what the editors of the different papers have for their reasons of using one term over the other. Conclusion This paper completes something that the author has wanted to do since reading English and the discourses of Colonialism. The book heavily influenced the author's views on foreign English teachers and English teaching. It is not easy for a white American, teaching English in Taiwan, to look at the issues of colonialism, but it must be done. Part of this discussion is the use of the term expat and what is meant behind its use. Is it being used by people as a way to take from the local population the ability to define the person in their own language? Or is the term used by people simply since they have seen the term in literature or have heard the term in daily life and have not thought about the term? It is hoped that this study can lead to more studies looking at the use of the terms in Taiwan and how people (both Taiwanese and non-Taiwanese) view the use of the term and whether it does carry any colonialism baggage. References Books & Papers References: Hemingway, E (1926) The sun also rises. New York: Scribner Paperback Fiction. Pennycook, A. (1998) English and the discourse of colonialism. Oxon, UK: Antony Rowe Ltd. MacGregor, M.E.M (date unknown) The black-bearded barbarian. Retrieved from Project Gutenberg: http://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/1759 Rennie, L. J. (1993). Living and working in Japan: A study of American English teachers. (Unpublished master's thesis). School for International Training, Brattleboro, Vermont. Retrieved from ERIC database. (ED374656). White, 10
Scully, E. (2001). Working as a foreign English teacher in rural Japan: JET instructors in Shimane Prefecture. (Unpublished research paper). University of Shimane, Japan. Retrieved from ERIC database. (ED452725). Etymology References: From Merriam-Webster online: Expat (2011). Retrieved from: http://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/expat Expatriate (2011). Retrieved from: http://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/expatriate Foreigner (2011). Retrieved from: http://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/foreigner From Online Etymology Dictionary: Expat (n.d.). Retrieved from: http://www.etymonline.com/index.php?term=expat Expatriate (n.d). Retrieved from: http://www.etymonline.com/index.php?term=expatriate Foreigner (n.d). Retrieved from: http://www.etymonline.com/index.php?term=foreigner Foreign (n.d). Retrieved from: http://www.etymonline.com/index.php?term=foreign Taipei Times References: Editors (Sat, Feb. 26, 2011) “EDITORIAL : Ban the ‘H bomb’ in politics” Retrieved from: http://www.taipeitimes.com/News/editorials/archives/2011/02/26/2003496804 Huang, S (Wed, Jan. 19, 2011) “Council of Labor Affairs to launch ‘3K’ job subsidy” Retrieved from: http://www.taipeitimes.com/News/taiwan/archives/2011/01/19/2003493888 Queen Bee (Fri, Feb. 18, 2011) “The Vinyl Word” Retrieved from: http://www.taipeitimes.com/News/feat/archives/2011/02/18/2003496164 Shu, C (Tue, Nov. 30, 2010) “From A to Zakka” Retrieved from: http://www.taipeitimes.com/News/feat/archives/2010/11/30/2003489761 Staff Writer (Sat, Jan. 15, 2011) “Government set to erect monument for expatriate herors” Retrieved from: http://www.taipeitimes.com/News/taiwan/archives/2011/01/15/2003493569
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