<p>Is 苦力 offensive?</p>
<p>The word &quot;coolie&quot; is an English transliteration of 苦力</p>
<p>In English it would roughly be equivalent to the phrase &quot;the sweat of one's brow&quot;, referring to the effort expended in labor, and the value created thereby.</p>
<p>Coolies were laborers who did all the hard physical work in the old days; today it would be more politically correct to call them &quot;blue collar workers&quot;</p>
<p>Look at the old photos of old Hong Kong, Singapore, showing brown skinned, muscular men carrying all manner of goods on their backs from &quot;bumboats&quot;, (also known as tongkangs) to the shore.</p>
<p>Many of my male relatives of two, three generations ago were coolies as, being uneducated, it was the only available work when they mass migrated out of Guangdong, Fujian provinces in search of work in the then expanding British Empire which needed as many indentured workers as they could find for their rubber, oil palm
plantations, tin mines, etc., much better though then the African slaves forcibly shipped to the Americas and West Indies to work in the cotton fields.</p>
<p>Now, is the term &quot;coolie&quot; or 苦力 offensive?</p>
<p>It depends on who you ask and when you ask it. If I was asked whether I would be offended being a descendant of a coolie, when I was a small boy, (70 years ago), I would be offended, as the term carried a certain negative social stigma then.</p>
<p>Today, I would be proud to be a descendant of a coolie because it was through the back-breaking work and physical misery of these wretched, forgotten men that the economies of many East and South-East Asian countries were built, and which was why Imperial Japan wanted to conquer and take over these countries from the British during WWII.</p>

CC BY-SA 4.0
2023-12-23T06:44:20.650Z
2023-12-23T06:44:20.650Z
Wayne Cheah
<p>苦(bitter/hardship/suffering) - 与“甘”相对, 指辛勞貧窮.</p>
<p>&quot;<strong>苦力(hard labor)</strong>&quot;, while it possesses the notion of &quot;non-educated/skilled labor, who lives in poverty and is often despised by the higher hierarchy of the Chinese society, is not an offensive word as the English slang - &quot;<strong>coolie</strong>&quot;, which was first used in the 16th century by European traders across Asia to call the low wage labors typically from India or China.</p>
<p>In modern days, it is replaced with 勞工/勞力{labor/manpower).</p>

CC BY-SA 4.0
2023-12-23T14:56:08.277Z
2023-12-23T14:56:08.277Z
r13
<p>The term 苦力 (coolie) describes a job. It is not offensive. However, the common thinking was men became coolies due to lacking an education or a valuable skill. Therefore, it was unkind to stress someone is a 苦力 to his face.</p>
<p>We say 你這個臭苦力 (You stinky coolie) to belittle someone, but it doesn't work as well with more respectable jobs, for example, 你這個臭律師 just stating someone is a bad person, who happens to be a lawyer, no belittling involved</p>
<p>Nowadays we don't call someone 苦力, we call someone 體力勞動工作者 (physical labor) instead, and the current common thinking is people become physical laborers mostly due to a lack of chances.</p>

CC BY-SA 4.0
2023-12-23T04:05:54.147Z
2023-12-23T04:27:56.957Z
2023-12-23T04:27:56.957Z
Tang Ho
<p>I encountered the word 苦力 in my textbook 《会通汉语 读写6》 p.36:</p>
<blockquote>
<p><a href="https://i.sstatic.net/Fs6sG.jpg" rel="nofollow noreferrer"><img src="https://i.sstatic.net/Fs6sG.jpg" alt="definition of 苦力" /></a></p>
</blockquote>
<blockquote>
<p><a href="https://i.sstatic.net/ocCa3.jpg" rel="nofollow noreferrer"><img src="https://i.sstatic.net/ocCa3.jpg" alt="苦力 mentioned in the text" /></a></p>
</blockquote>
<p>When I studied this word, I found:</p>
<blockquote>
<p><a href="https://www.mdbg.net/chinese/dictionary?wdqb=%E8%8B%A6%E5%8A%9B" rel="nofollow noreferrer">CC-CEDICT</a>: 苦力 (kǔ​lì​) bitter work / hard toil / (loanword) coolie, unskilled Chinese laborer in colonial times</p>
</blockquote>
<p>and since I didn't know the English word &quot;coolie&quot;, I Googled it, and found <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Coolie" rel="nofollow noreferrer">on Wikipedia</a> that:</p>
<blockquote>
<p>Coolie ... is a pejorative term used for low-wage labourers, typically those of Indian or Chinese descent.  ... The word has had a variety of negative implications. In modern-day English, it is usually regarded as offensive.</p>
</blockquote>
<p>Hence...</p>
<p><strong>Question</strong>: Is 苦力 offensive?</p>
<p>I have no idea.  My textbook didn't mention the possibility that it might be offensive.</p>

<meaning>
Is 苦力 offensive?
# Is 苦力 offensive?

(Asked by: username_0 on 2023-12-23)

I encountered the word 苦力 in my textbook 《会通汉语 读写6》 p.36:

> [![definition of 苦力](https://i.sstatic.net/Fs6sG.jpg)](https://i.sstatic.net/Fs6sG.jpg)

> [![苦力 mentioned in the text](https://i.sstatic.net/ocCa3.jpg)](https://i.sstatic.net/ocCa3.jpg)

When I studied this word, I found:

> [CC-CEDICT](https://www.mdbg.net/chinese/dictionary?wdqb=%E8%8B%A6%E5%8A%9B): 苦力 (kǔ​lì​) bitter work / hard toil / (loanword) coolie, unskilled Chinese laborer in colonial times

and since I didn't know the English word "coolie", I Googled it, and found [on Wikipedia](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Coolie) that:

> Coolie ... is a pejorative term used for low-wage labourers, typically those of Indian or Chinese descent. ... The word has had a variety of negative implications. In modern-day English, it is usually regarded as offensive.

Hence...

**Question**: Is 苦力 offensive?

I have no idea. My textbook didn't mention the possibility that it might be offensive.

**Tags:** meaning


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## 3 answers

### Answer by username_1 on 2023-12-23. Score: 1

Is 苦力 offensive?

The word "coolie" is an English transliteration of 苦力

In English it would roughly be equivalent to the phrase "the sweat of one's brow", referring to the effort expended in labor, and the value created thereby.

Coolies were laborers who did all the hard physical work in the old days; today it would be more politically correct to call them "blue collar workers"

Look at the old photos of old Hong Kong, Singapore, showing brown skinned, muscular men carrying all manner of goods on their backs from "bumboats", (also known as tongkangs) to the shore.

Many of my male relatives of two, three generations ago were coolies as, being uneducated, it was the only available work when they mass migrated out of Guangdong, Fujian provinces in search of work in the then expanding British Empire which needed as many indentured workers as they could find for their rubber, oil palm
plantations, tin mines, etc., much better though then the African slaves forcibly shipped to the Americas and West Indies to work in the cotton fields.

Now, is the term "coolie" or 苦力 offensive?

It depends on who you ask and when you ask it. If I was asked whether I would be offended being a descendant of a coolie, when I was a small boy, (70 years ago), I would be offended, as the term carried a certain negative social stigma then.

Today, I would be proud to be a descendant of a coolie because it was through the back-breaking work and physical misery of these wretched, forgotten men that the economies of many East and South-East Asian countries were built, and which was why Imperial Japan wanted to conquer and take over these countries from the British during WWII.


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### Answer by username_2 on 2023-12-23. Score: 1

苦(bitter/hardship/suffering) - 与“甘”相对, 指辛勞貧窮.

"**苦力(hard labor)**", while it possesses the notion of "non-educated/skilled labor, who lives in poverty and is often despised by the higher hierarchy of the Chinese society, is not an offensive word as the English slang - "**coolie**", which was first used in the 16th century by European traders across Asia to call the low wage labors typically from India or China.

In modern days, it is replaced with 勞工/勞力{labor/manpower).


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### Answer by username_3 on 2023-12-23. Score: 1

The term 苦力 (coolie) describes a job. It is not offensive. However, the common thinking was men became coolies due to lacking an education or a valuable skill. Therefore, it was unkind to stress someone is a 苦力 to his face.

We say 你這個臭苦力 (You stinky coolie) to belittle someone, but it doesn't work as well with more respectable jobs, for example, 你這個臭律師 just stating someone is a bad person, who happens to be a lawyer, no belittling involved

Nowadays we don't call someone 苦力, we call someone 體力勞動工作者 (physical labor) instead, and the current common thinking is people become physical laborers mostly due to a lack of chances.


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