Banner Image: The foreign devils, Chinese caricature of an English sailor, engraving. Opium Wars, China, 19th century
This is the research site for an art installation called Foreign Devils:
Gweilo or Gwai Lo (鬼佬;is a common Cantonese slang term for foreigners which translates as "foreign devils" , originally applied to European migrants in China. Demonising migrants is not the prerogative of the Chinese - all coloureds, not just Chinese, working in colonial Australia were feared by right wing nationalists and pilloried with abuse particularly in the lead up to Federation.
Gwei (鬼) means "ghost". A lo (佬) is a regular guy, a chap or a bloke.[3] The term is a reference to skin color, as white skin is associated with ghosts. The term is sometimes translated into English as foreign devil.[
Nothing has changed and today we see the Australian bourgeois state maintaining borders against .....etc