friday 5 | chinese net-speak (part 2) ::
:: as a follow up to a post from a couple months ago, here is “part 2″ of what is likely to become a 56minus1 series on Chinese Internet slang / “netspeak.”
Chinese netizens enjoy playing with language. They make up new words, insert alphabetic and numerical abbreviations between the Chinese characters in their posts, and trade catchphrases with wild abandon. However, to “outsiders,” conversations full of obscure acronyms, ancient characters, and allusions to pop Chinese culture can be quite difficult to follow. Below are some more examples of vocabulary that will help you understand what Chinese netizens are really talking about.
label: the test-bowl tribe 考碗族 [pronounced: kao wan zu] ::
Chinese media has been abuzz with reports of the record number of applicants for the annual civil service exams this year. These people are known as “考碗族,” a new term that brings together “exam” 考试 (kaoshi), “iron rice bowl” 铁饭碗 (tie fanwan), and the suffix 族 (zu) that’s often used for groups of people. The result describes a group of people competing for a stable job. The rice bowl need not be iron; these days there are bronze, silver, and gold rice bowls, corresponding to the different levels of government. This Xici blog post uses many of the terms. The 族 suffix is quite productive and appears in informal terms for car-owners 汽车族 (qiche zu), people who spend all their salary every month 月光族 (yueguang zu), and people with obsessive interests in a particular subject 宅族 (zhai zu). This last term has changed from its original meaning: it was borrowed from Japanese otaku, but the Chinese term has 宅, “house” (in Japanese it’s written phonetically as おたく), making the word apply more to people whose obsessiveness with video games and animation leads them to seldom emerge from their homes.
extended meaning: corruption 腐败 [pronounced: fubai] ::
Literal meaning: corruption. But due to one of the most visible signs of corruption in China being the lavish misuse of public funds by officials looking to give themselves and their cronies a good time, it’s now a verb meaning “to indulge.” This can range from dining at pricey restaurants to going out to KTV, to going off on a holiday. In this blog post, the author writes, “Next time you’re in Hangzhou, let me take you out to fubai.”
transliteration: dirty 得体 [pronounced: deti] ::
Literal meaning: appropriate, in good taste. Its pronunciation, “deti,” sounds like the English word “dirty,” and describes someone who’s not as pure and chaste as they look. The contrast between the two meanings has been remarked on in jokes in the past, but the current usage seems to stem from the song “Dirty” by Lee-hom Wang (王力宏). In this blog post, the author consciously puns on the word in a description of her house. In other contexts it may be hard to figure out which meaning the writer intends, so it will be interesting to see how long the word lasts.
extended meaning: to blacken 黑 [pronounced: hei] ::
The word “black” is often used to describe corrupt, illegal, or malicious activity. This season, it gained a new use as a verb: to be blackened. After an automatic update from Microsoft, the Windows XP desktop background was turned black on pirated copies of the OS. Netizens reacted immediately by complaining about being “blackened,” and creative types began creating black desktop backgrounds of their own that mocked Microsoft’s anti-piracy effort. This Douban thread is full of uses of 黑 as a verb, and is titled “Have you been blackened today?”
labels: the phoenix and the peacock 凤凰男 / 孔雀女 [pronounced: fenghuang nan and kongque nv respectively] ::
A “phoenix” is a man whose rural family places all their hopes and dreams in him, sending him through school and then to the big city. When he’s successful, he becomes a “golden phoenix that rises from the mountains.” This long-standing image has been paired with the “peacock,” a spoiled city girl whose had it easy her whole life. The two terms are often used as a shorthand for the problems that young people from different backgrounds face in their interactions in China’s cities. This Tianya thread, “Don’t take a peacock for a wife,” uses both terms in its discussion of relationships.
// AjS
[Friday 5 is the product of my work at Edelman Digital (China). Link here for the full Friday 5 archive. If you'd like to be added to the bilingual (English & Chinese) Friday 5 email distribution list, please send me an email at: adam DOT schokora AT edelman DOT com.]
November 21st, 2008 at 4:38 pm
Love this stuff! I know it’s usually expressed in written form but any chance we can get the tones for these phrases? Just an idea for your next installment. Keep up the good work.
March 20th, 2009 at 1:25 pm
[...] is Adam Schokora’s compilations of net language on 56minus1, here (part one, just a few terms), here (part two, also brief) and here (part three, substantial). The third one in particular is a good [...]