Chankoro

A picture of courtesans playing a chankoro game in Okinawa prefecture (Iha Fuyū, 1893). The slur is used to stress the subjugated position of Okinawan women^[1]

Chankoro (Japanese: ちゃんころ or チャンコロ, Chinese: 清國奴; pinyin: Qīngguólǔ; lit. 'slaves of the Qing country',^[2] etymology is unclear,^[3][4] Ogata^[5] suggests "pigtailed fellow") is a Sinophobic ethnic slur^[6] used by the Japanese since the end of the Qing dynasty^[3] and it was also an expression of insult to the Taiwanese people during the Taiwan under Japanese rule.^[7]

In the English subtitles of the multilingual Chinese movie Devils on the Doorstep, the term is mostly translated as "Chinese pig(s)"" or "mongrel(s)".^[4]

In Korean

After Japan annexed Korea, the Japanese word chankoro entered the Korean language as jjangkkolla (Korean: 짱꼴라), which evolved into the current jjangkkae ^[ko] (Korean: 짱깨), and jjangkkae has become a representative derogatory term for Chinese people in Korea.^[8]

See also

• Anti-Chinese sentiment in Japan
• Ching chong
• Chink, a similar slur in English
• Racism in Japan

References

1. Barske 2013, p. 72.
2. "History was Reconfigured at the Time of Discovery: The Life and Afterlife of Chiang Wei-Shui". Taiwan Insight. 20 March 2023. Retrieved 5 September 2025.
3. "チャンコロとは、中国人の蔑称。". 日本語俗語辞書. Archived from the original on 2013-01-20. Retrieved 2010-07-13.
4. Takeda 2013, p. 101.
5. Ogata 2022, p. 85.
6. Tahmasbi et al. 2021.
7. 黃英哲 (2015-10-15). "【說書】臺灣作家筆下的「抗戰」". 故事 StoryStudio. Archived from the original on 2025-07-26.
8. "Translation of "チャンコロ" into Korean". Glosbe. Retrieved 5 September 2025. 짱깨; jjangkkae; ちゃんころ · チャンコロ · ポコペン · 支那人 · 不コ本

Sources

• Barske, Valerie H. (March 2013). "Visualizing Priestesses or Performing Prostitutes?: Ifa Fuyū's Depictions of Okinawan Women, 1913-1943" (PDF). Studies on Asia. Series IV. 3 (1).
• Ogata, Sadako (2022-11-02) [1965]. "The Japanese attitude towards China". Adelphi series. 62 (498–501): 83–96. doi:10.1080/19445571.2022.2281784. ISSN 1944-5571. Retrieved 2025-09-04.
• Tahmasbi, Fatemeh; Schild, Leonard; Ling, Chen; Blackburn, Jeremy; Stringhini, Gianluca; Zhang, Yang; Zannettou, Savvas (2021-04-19). "Go eat a bat, Chang!": On the Emergence of Sinophobic Behavior on Web Communities in the Face of COVID-19. ACM. arXiv:2004.04046. doi:10.1145/3442381.3450024. ISBN 978-1-4503-8312-7.
• Takeda, Kayoko (2013-05-29). "The interpreter as traitor: Multilingualism in Guizi lai le (Devils on the Doorstep)". Linguistica Antverpiensia, New Series – Themes in Translation Studies (13). doi:10.52034/lanstts.v0i13.71. ISSN 2295-5739. Retrieved 2025-09-04.