Difference between 华侨 and 华裔.

[roddy]

Huaqiao means any ethnic Chinese with overseas nationality but could be restricted to first-generation immigrants, Huayi refers to those people and their descendants. Am I right?

[BeijingSlacker]

My electronic dictionary (which is not particularly good) says:

华侨:oversea Chinese

华裔:foreign citizen of Chinese origin

My guess is your explanation is correct except that Huayi excludes the first-generation folks.

You tried any Chinese-Chinese dictionaries?

[seagate]

According to the definition from the Chinese government (see the link):

http://qwb.sh.gov.cn/gb/shqb/rdwd/userobject1ai4133.html

华侨 refers to those live outside of China but have Chinese nationality, that is 华侨仍然是中国公民，只不过侨居国外而已。

I agree with BeijingSlacker that 华裔 generally refers to a person that has a Chinese origin but is not a Chinese citizen. Say, 杨振宁是美籍华裔物理学家。

[ai liu]

you're all right. Hua qiao means ppl who are chinese but were born in a foreign country and does not apply to immigrants as they were not born in wherever they immigrated to. So yes you are right!

[Jose]

I think the main difference is grammatical: 华侨 is used on its own as a noun, whereas 华裔 is used as an adjective placed in front of a noun. So you can say 我朋友是个华侨 (not 华裔), or 我朋友是个华裔美国人 (not 华侨美国人).

Another example of the use of 裔 is the word 'Afroamerican': 非洲裔美国人 or 非裔美国人.

[Ian_Lee]

The line is really blurred.

Why? Very simple. Who is 华侨 nowadays?

Those new immigrants that departed China in the last few years that haven't become naturalized citizens yet in their adopted countries.

Or some diehard old folks that dwell only in Chinatown.

But usually these people are without any clouts whom Beijing is not interested to woo.

In fact, now most overseas Chinese that Beijing tries to woo are all 华裔.

Never mind. Those 华裔 are still given titles as representatives in the Political Consultative Conference albeit they are Britons, Americans, Canadians, Aussie,.....etc.

[HashiriKata]

The character 裔 in 华裔 means "descendants". This character should help sorting out the difference between 华侨 and 华裔. Don't you think?

[Jose]

Since nobody's corrected me, I'll have to correct myself...

Contrary to what I said, 华裔 can be used as a singular noun, so 我朋友是一个华裔 is a correct sentence.

Sorry about that.

[aline]

I'm a bit confused about all this.

My parents were both born in China but left China about 25 years ago. Now they are citizens of another country. Are they still huaqiao?

My siblings and I were born in that other country.

A friend said that since I'm part of the first generation of my family born outside China , I'm a huaqiao too.. but another friend said that i'm a huayi.

Am i a huaqiao or huayi?

I met a chinese-looking guy at an Indian restaurant some time ago. He can speak Hindi. He told me that he is a 'zhong guo ren' but he was born in India and has lived there for 15 years before going back to China.

I was like "euhhhh... " , wondering if one can be called a zhong guo ren if born outside China but didn't say anything about it to him in case i offend him somehow.

[skylee]

IMHO, anyone of a Chinese descent can call themselves 中國人/華人 if they like.

[Ian_Lee]

Actually there is big difference between 中國人 and 華人 especially in politically sensitive area like Southeast Asia.

中國人 is related more to nationality while 華人 is more related to one's ethnic and cultural background.

In fact, even the term 中文 is gradually replaced by the less nationalistic term 華語 overseas.

In the "World Chinese Singers Contest" which is rotatedly presided by radio stations from Beijing, Shanghai, Guangzhou, HK, Taipei, Singapore and Kuala Lumpur, Chinese songs are called 華語歌曲 instead of 中文歌曲.

Even the Grade School Chinese language textbooks published in Taiwan labels Chinese as 華語.

And interestingly Taiwan is willing to settle for the title with 中華 as prefix in international organizations. Probably because it is more related to ethnicity and culture but less with nationality.

When 中 and 華 is used separately, their meanings vary.