A while back, I had a conversation with my friend where he expressed his dislike for the term “西方人” meaning “westerner” in Chinese. For context, my friend is a caucasian American who has been living in Taiwan for the past few years and was visiting home for the holidays. At first, I was resistant to his stance. I found it odd that someone would take offense to being called a westerner. It would be akin to if I was offended for being called an East Asian (which I am). 

He said he would rather just be called white, and found the term westerner to be a poor categorization of what he is. He observes that while living in Asia, “westerner” is used to refer to white people specifically and not actually referring to “people who live west of asia” in whole. He also argued that the concept of “western culture” is extremely ambiguous and not useful as a categorization since it’s oftentimes hardly geographically western, while also failing to acknowledge that there are people who do live geographically west but could feasibly fail to fit under the “western culture” umbrella. 

As the conversation went on, I grew to realize that his contempt of the term is less due to semantics, but rather its use. While he did make some good points and some bad points regarding whether “western” is a good term to use from a definitional standpoint, I realized his distaste stems from the fact that “西方人” often comes with some negative connotations. Or at the very least, creates scenarios where someone deemed to be a “西方人” is othered. Effectively, he’s observed “西方人” as a slur.

And that kind of made me stop and think about the nature of slurs. I think it’s normal for someone to reject a word as a slur if they perceive it as a regularly used phrase. Like telling the average person that “lame” is an ableist slur will make them roll their eyes at you. But slurs don’t always exist because people create words specifically to be slurs, but often by people twisting existing words into becoming slurs. “Official” names can become insults and slurs through usage, so it wasn’t right for me to reject his contempt for the term “westerner” on semantics alone. The R-slur used to be a medical term. The N-slur was just a color. It doesn’t matter if a dictionary has a definition for what a “westerner” is or isn’t. The fact of the matter was that my friend was indeed experiencing the term “西方人” used in negative connotations and grew to dislike it. 

And from this new perspective I can understand my friend a lot better. He’s been living in Asia for quite some time now. Culturally, he has adapted the customs there. Just like how I have immigrated to America and lived here long enough to call myself an American, my friend is effectively Taiwanese in all matters except ethnicity. So to be called “西方人” is to be othered. Specifically when the person using the phrase would impose preconceived notions while doing so. At least being called “白种人” meaning “white person” makes it clear that he’s being othered for his complexion, to be called “western” would be to imply he’s a cultural stranger who does not fit in. 

I think a comparable example would be like how many Asian Americans dislike the use of the word “oriental” and would be offended to be referred to as such. It’s actually a surprisingly one-to-one comparison and I’m surprised I didn’t think of it until writing this post. Oriental does literally just mean “of East Asia”. But it’s not the definition that people have a problem with. While I do not personally take issue with the word, I would never dismiss someone else who does. 

After my conversations with my friend, I’ve actually noticed I’ve reduced my usage of the word western/westerner. I try not to use it anymore, regardless of whether the people I talk to would take offense or not. Ironically, my usage of the word western around my friend has increased dramatically; to his dismay. Due to the fact that we have a sarcastic relationship built on annoying and teasing each other.