text: Laowai is the Pinyin pronunciation/transliteration of  (pinyin: lǎowài, lit. "old foreign"), an informal term or slang for "foreigner" and/or non-Chinese national, usually neutral but possibly impolite or loose in some circumstances. Formal and polite Chinese terms for foreigner include wàiguórén (), wàibīn (),  guójì yǒurén ) and wàiguó pengyou (). "Laowai" is commonly used to refer to foreigners of non-Asian ethnicities. The term usually does not refer to ethnic Han of non-Chinese citizenship or other Asian ethnicities.
  Etymology
  The use of the word  began in the 1980s, likely as an abbreviation of the term  (foreigner) into  plus the prefix .