Ms Tick,

You are ony half correct about 'Lao wai'. It certainly doesn't mean 'white skinned'. It simply means 'out person' (or just 'foreigner'.)

I don't quite understand your problem with 'Lao wai in China' as a name, as it is infact a perfectly good name. Very acurate I would really.

DoS

> Dear Laowai in China,

> For the information of the uninitiated, and for those currently
> resident in houses constructed entirely of a brittle, transparent
> substance formed by the melting of silica, "laowai" is a
> term taken from Mandarin Chinese, which more or less means
> "white-skinned foreigner".

> Now the only way you can be "laowai" is to be a
> white-skinned foreigner and in China...if, say, you were to travel to
> Thailand, you would transmogrify immediately into a
> "farang", and would, by way of example, find that you would
> have further metamorphosed into a "bule" were you to travel
> onward to indonesia... and all this without having made mention of
> the "guei-lo" monstrosity you become in more southern
> climes of the fair country originally mentioned, nor of the labels
> applied to distinguish such people by natives of countries to its
> immediate east.

> Laowai in China, we are inconsolably appalled at the absurdity of
> your "handle"; surely the grammatical crime of tautology
> far outranks the mere misdemeanour of, say, a double negative, which
> is quite common a linguistic device and an accepted means of
> expression throughout many of the languages to be found on this fair
> planet.

> we would be pleased if you would rectify this oversight immediately
> and so spare us all from further pain. suggested emendations would be
> "laowai" or "white-skinned person in China".
> obviously you cannot expect to get all the respect you no doubt
> deserve when you refer to yourself as "white-skinned person in
> China in China".

> your partner in pedantry,

> Miss Tick