Impress with Instant Mandarin Slang

by Ernie Diaz

“Man, that’s lei!”

This is the best instant Chinese lesson you’re going to get (today) – ten quick Chinese phrases at the bleeding edge of Mando-Internet culture. Using these words and phrases correctly will show you’re not up on your Mandarin; you’re down with the Chinese.

Imagine the bar street beggar who distinguishes himself from his “Hallo moneymoney?” peers by asking you with the sincerity of a Humphrey Bogart, “Brother, can you spare a yuan?” How about the Shenyang shlub who defies KTV expectations by belting out “Sweet Child o’ Mine”? Those are the kind of brownie points we promise those of you who commit this slang to memory and use it with care.

Don’t be scared of the characters – cut and paste as needed. Oh yeah, we threw in the tone numbers for you, too.

囧 Jiong3

This character originally meant “bright”, but look at those droopy eyes, and the Edvard Munch mouth. That’s why jiong is currently the coolest way to denote a state of gloom.

Use the character to tell someone on your IM list that you have the Monday morning blahs, or to share your existential angst with that attractive Chinese coffeehouse intellectual.

“How can I not be jiong, when life imitates Kafka?”

In truth, the connotations of jiong are increasing as rapidly as the character’s popularity. Faux-Nike giant Lining has actually put out a shoe with the character on it, and there are more than a few sites devoted to jiong, such as http://jionger.com/. To gauge from some of the site’s recent posts, jiong can now be used to mean anything from ‘picayune’ to ‘far out’.

顶Ding3

A translator might tell you ding means “up”, but its popular current incarnation signifies support, confirmation. Think ‘right on’, or whatever you kids are saying now to voice agreement [‘Word'? ‘Fo' shizzle'? Hippies.]

In any event, it’s perfect for acknowledging the efforts of someone on a comment thread who’s put extra-effort into his unsolicited opinion. No wonder a CNNIC survey ranked it first in Mandarin net frequency.

槑 Mei2

If 呆 , dai, means stupid, then 槑 should logically be daidai. But who are English speakers to demand logic in a second language, anyway? Mei gives you that extra dumb edge, when calling something ben just won’t convey your hip contempt.

At the Sinopec Station

“Whaddya mean, put out your cigarette? I’m inside the car with the windows up! Mei!”

雷 Lei2

Getting hit by lei, lightning, is bound to leave you a little taken aback. So seeing, reading or hearing something ridiculously out-of-line could be likened to a little tickle from the troposphere, right?

It can in China. In fact, there’s at least one whole website devoted to the concept, http://www.leitie.com/ , where we got the following picture. Now that’s lei.

霹雳 Pi1 Li4

A step up from lei, when Zeus himself chucks one of his thunderbolts at your keister. Reserved for events and utterances so outlandish as to leave everyone in their vicinity a few IQ points poorer.

“Did you just say you thought Bush should have run for another term? Pi li, and a pox on thee, sirrah!”

汗 Han4

Occasionally, in our vigilance for the mei, lei, and pi li in life, we may be distracted enough to do something less than smart ourselves. If you stand rightly accused of having done something mei, and you’re not too chagrined to remember, han will convey both your embarrassment and your command of current Mandarin vernacular. Think of those Japanese cartoon frames wherein the perspiration leaps from a gaping face in wiggly lines.

On bumping into your in-laws whilst slinking out of an ‘Adult Health’ boutique,

“Han.”

粉 Fen3

Looks like the pan-China trend of cute for cute’s sake is finally reaping some well-deserved backlash, ironic backlash at that, the best kind. For some time, the most self-consciously cute of China’s fairer sex have been saying fen instead of hen when they want to say “very” [Fen ke ai. Very cute.] Now, just saying fen shows that whatever is being presented as cute has crossed the thin line over to sickening.

“Won’t this Snoopy go perfectly with the other stuffed animals in the back window of my pink Chery?”

“Fen.”

白骨精 Bai2 Gu3 Jing1

Chinese hair-dying, Santana-driving, IKEA-shopping twenty and thirty-somethings, we dubbed thee Chuppies. It just sounded right for such a large and ostensibly intelligent group imitating the empty excesses of Western consumerism.

Well, the laobaixing are on to you too, Chinese yuppies. With consummate punnery they’ve taken the name of a ghost from “Journey to the West” and given it new meaning by making abbreviations of its component parts: 白领, ‘white collar’, reduced to 白, or ‘white’; 骨干, ‘cadreman’, reduced to 骨, or ‘spine’; and 精英, ‘elite’, reduced to 精, or ‘monster’.

“Nice D&G sweater on your poodle, there, you White Spine Monster!” Yeah, that’ll do.

河蟹 He2 Xie4

Ooh, now we’re getting topical. Tired of those censorious Firewallers blocking your expletive-filled yet incredibly insightful blog? They’re river crabs; that’s what they are! To he xie is to river crab, to block content as the male river crab blocks rivals from coming near his chosen mate’s mud hole. Actually, we’re not sure about that last part – our cable, including Discover, got river crabbed.

王道 Wang2 Dao4

“How about some lingo with a positive meaning?” you ask. Fair enough. Wang dao was originally a Confucian concept, concerning the ideal way to rule. Did we say “rule”? Darn right – if something rules, then it’s wang dao.

“Bloody Yanks – everyone knows the original Office was wang dao. So was Roger Moore, for that matter.”

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