Ang Mo (simplified Chinese: 红毛; pinyin: hóng máo; Pe̍h-ōe-jī: âng-mo͘) or sometimes Ang mo kow (red-haired monkeys) and Ang mo kui (red-haired devil), also spelled ang moh, is a racial epithet that originates from Hokkien (Min Nan) that is used to refer to white people in Malaysia and Singapore. Literally meaning 'red-haired', the term carries a strong stigma at present amongst a large proportion of the Caucasian minority. The term implies that the person referred to is a devil, a concept also explicitly used in the Cantonese term gweilo ('foreign devil').
The term is rather generally viewed as racist and derogatory by some Caucasians living in Singapore, however some maintain it is acceptable to others, making it in some contexts a reclaimed word. Despite this ambiguity, it is a widely used term. It appears, for instance, in print in newspapers like the Straits Times[1][1][2] and 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' (Template:Zhe) in Chinese. It was built by the Spanish in the 17th century.
The characters for "Ang Mo" are the same as those in the historical Japanese term "Kōmō" (紅毛), which was during the Edo Period an epithet for (northwestern European) white people, being used primarily to refer to the Dutch traders who were the only ones allowed to trade with Japan during its 200 year isolation. Portuguese and Spanish traders were in contrast referred to as nanban (南蛮), which is in turn cognate to the Chinese nanman and means "southern barbarians".
Definitions of ang mo:
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