Sources
Help build the largest human-edited directory on the web.
Submit a site - Become an editor
Wikipedia. Licensed under the GNU Free Documentation License.
Are you an expert in this subject? Join the discussion and share your knowledge at Wikipedia.org.
Ang Mo
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
Ang mo (Simplified Chinese: 红毛; pinyin: hóng máo; POJ: âng-mo•), also spelled ang moh, is a racial epithet that originates from Hokkien that is used to refer to Caucasian or white persons in Malaysia and Singapore. Literally meaning 'red-haired', the term carried a much stronger stigma in the past in China than it does at present. Then, it often implied that the person referred to was a devil, a concept explicitly used in the Cantonese term gweilo ('foreign devil').
The term is regarded as mildly derogatory by some, but is widely used. It appears, for instance, in various Singaporean television programmes and films. The term was used in the film I Not Stupid, in which when several employees in the marketing department of their company resented a particular Caucasian individual because they perceived that preference had been shown to him because of his race.
Ang mo is believed to be the term originally used in the Singapore place-name Ang Mo Kio (now usually rendered thus: Simplified Chinese: 宏茂桥; pinyin: hóng mào qiáo). The term may either refer to the rambutan, a fruit with a red skin covered with hairs; or to a bridge built by the British after which the nearby town was named.
Fort Santo Domingo in Tamshuei, Taiwan is known as the 'City of the Red-Haired' (Simplified Chinese: 红毛城; pinyin: hóng máo chéng; POJ: Âng-mn̂g-siâ) in Chinese. It was built by the Spanish in the 17th century.
Definitions of ang mo: