I take utmost satisfaction in the fact that every Chinese legal text I've read in the past week involving early interactions between China and the West have consistently referred to white people as "barbarians." The phrase is not used as an insult, it is not used maliciously, and it is not some sort of defense/offense mechanism that they are using for contentious purposes. It's just their understanding of the West. Just as we would say "oh...look at that cute puppy!" if we saw a baby dog, they would say "oh...rook! It's a barbarian!" if they saw a white person.
(The professor pointed out that another commonly used phrase was "Hairy Barbarians")
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