Laowai Lexicon: laowai lookaway
laowai lookaway [lou-wahy · look · uh-wey]
-noun
1. the phenomenon by which two Caucasian foreigners living in Shanghai go to extreme lengths to avoid eye contact while passing one another on the street : Yesterday, when I passed a pretty white girl on the street I wanted to stop her and say hello. But instead, we both engaged in the laowai lookaway.
Origin: Chinese [lao=old, wai=foreigner]; Old English [locian=to dial, aweg=reduction of]
Commentary: You would think that the expat community in a foreign city, or “laowais” as we’re called here, would stick together, say hello and take care of each other. When I first got to Shanghai, this was my instinct– that there were so few foreigners living here that to give a head nod or a “hello” to a fellow foreigner was obligatory. Soon I learned that this was not the way it works in Shanghai. I noticed there were many more expats who snubbed me than those who acknowledged me. So I stopped the head nods, the smiles and that weird in-between smile/grimace thing that men do to acknowledge other men. It seems that the foreign community in China is extremely territorial and profoundly unfriendly to one another. As it was once explained to me, every Westerner who comes to China thinks he is on some sort of rugged expedition of self-discovery in which he is the only person who has ever braved living in China. Despite the trendy French guy coming his way and the tour book-grasping American couple crossing the street, the laowai, and most always it’s the male laowai, creates the illusion for himself that he is the only foreigner in China. The more foreigners in his sight line, the less intrepid is his adventure and as a result, the laowai must pretend the other laowais do not exist. Thus, the laowai looks away when he sees another one of his kind. As the expat community in Shanghai continues to grow, so too will the phenomenon of the laowai lookaway.