![]() One of the more mysterious and lesser-known nicknames for the British. Links between the two countries are still close and immigration continues both ways, with many young New Zealanders regarding a trip to the old country as a rite of passage. Despite this, the descendants of immigrants from the UK continue to make up the largest ethnic group in New Zealand - around 30 per cent of the population. Until the more derogatory "Pom" came into circulation after the Second World War, New Zealanders used the gently mocking "Homey" to needle those British expats who longed for some of the comforts back home rather than embracing fully the life of God's Own Country. Today however, post-ironic Europeans in Hong Kong revel in the description. The most offensive form of the term is Sai Gwai Lo (deathly ghost man). Parents once liked to frighten their children with bedtime stories about the Gwai Lo and Gwai Por (ghost woman), Gwai Zai (ghost boy), and Gwai Mui (ghost girl). In Hong Kong the British, like the other white-skinned arrivals, became known as the Gwai Lo, literally "white ghosts" in Cantonese. Its encounters with British imperialism proved devastating, culminating in the two Opium Wars which led to the Boxer rebellion. In 1794 Napoleon took it upon himself to democratise the roads, decreeing all citizens should travel on the right.įor centuries China held itself separate from the outside world, only engaging with the European powers in the 19th century. The peasantry would tramp along on the right-hand side. This practice had its origins in feudal society, when the aristocracy would ride on the left to keep their sword-wielding right hands free for defence. Until then, the Dutch travelling public traversed its highways and byways much like the rest of Europe, driving on the left. Not so much a slight as a statement of fact, the term alludes to the fact that the Netherlands fell under the yoke of Napoleon's "new rightism" after the conquest of 1795. The liberal and open-minded Dutch have a characteristically practical term for the British, referring to them as linksrijers, or left-hand drivers. The term is also applicable to English-speaking South Africans. Indeed it was not uncommon for British people in South Africa as recently as the 1970s to be called "bloody rooineks" by their Afrikaans-speaking neighbours. Rudyard Kipling, perhaps the most patriotic chronicler of the British Empire at its height, used the phrase while covering the Boer War for the Daily Express. ![]() In South Africa, the habit of settlers in the early-1880s to wear a hat that failed to cover their necks as they tramped the scorching veld, earned them the name "rooinek", Afrikaans for "red neck". ![]() The British traveller's fair skin made them an easy target for the gibes of swarthier races. It soon became a handy term for the American tourists too. ![]()
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