John Padsen, the big nose who runs Sinosplice and the invaluable China Blog List, notes that ’round eye’ is not used as a derogatory term for Westerners.:

We English speakers have at our disposal an astounding variety of racial slurs. I don’t need to give a list here; we all know it to be true. I think one of the most interesting slurs is “round-eye” because it seems to be invented by the very group of people to whom it refers.

If you’re not familiar with the term, it frequently shows up on racist websites or websites that play up the East/West divide (but not on certain ones—more on this below). It is also used seemingly innocuously at times. It’s supposed to be a term that Asians use for non-Asians.

It may be obvious to many Asians, but as a white American, I didn’t notice anything strange about the way the term is used until after living in China for some time. The truth is, I’ve never heard any Chinese (or Japanese) refer to whites or any non-Asians as “round-eyes,” in Chinese or any other language. At times non-Asians in China might get called hairy, simian, uncivilized, or even evil, but never round-eyed.

The reason for this is simple. While non-Asians often see Asian eyes as “slanted,” Asians do not see themselves that way. If you ask a Chinese person about the difference between Chinese and white people’s eyes, for instance, they will tell you that white people’s eyes are often blue, but Chinese eyes are “black.”

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