China Hope Live » Chinese take-out

国保/国宝

Joel 大江 — Mon, 19 Dec 2011 18:18:05 +0000

Pronounced: guó bǎo
Literally: National Security/National Treasure
Means: The two terms are homophones, and “national treasure” often means “panda”. A writer at Seeing Red in China explains the rest: “how panda becomes the symbol for Chinese security thugs: Chinese national security (more like secret police) is called 国保 (guó bǎo) for short, and it’s pronounced exactly the same as 国宝, national treasure. Netizens sometimes refer 国保 as 国宝, jokingly, hence Panda, China’s national treasure. Kungfu Panda movies provided the basis for Panda to be a martial character.”

With the recent confrontation between Batman actor Christian Bale and some infamous Chinese security thugs, online Chinese are been passing around “Pandaman vs. Batman” jokes, and photoshopping “Pandaman” into all kinds of scenarios, including movie posters and images from other security embarrassments and scandals. See here, here and here for more.

黑改苦教

Joel 大江 — Fri, 09 Dec 2011 22:56:42 +0000

Pronounced: hēi gǎi kǔ jiào
Literally: dark reform bitter education
Means: “The labour camp is dark and reeducation through labour is bitter.”

Related phrases include:

劳动改造
láodòng gǎizào
(Reform through labour)
劳改
láogǎi
(1. shorthand for 劳动改造; 2. a prison camp)
劳动教养
láodòng jiàoyǎng
(Reeducation through labour)
劳教
láojiào
(shorthand for 劳动教养)

You can see/hear some of these terms, with English subtitles, between 7:10 and 8:47 of this Al-Jazeera investigative report.

The sign says:
Who are you
What is this place
Why have you come here

You can find the answers to those questions in the video linked above.

心眼

Joel 大江 — Thu, 17 Nov 2011 16:54:03 +0000

Pronounced: xīn yǎn
Literally: heart/mind eye; eyes of the mind
Means: calculating, wily

The post “Dumb Americans”and one of its comments explain it this way:
“To many Chinese, Americans don’t have xin-yan (心眼, meaning, literally, eyes of the mind; or figuratively, calculating, wily), they trust what you say, and they believe you are doing what you say you are doing. For that, they are dumb. …to speak your mind straightforwardly, to defend your position forcefully, and to uphold what you believe without compromise, are all signs of childishness. A lot of Americans, alas, fill that bill.” [Link 1]

“There is another xinyan word/phrase: 实心眼。 It means solid, blocked 心眼 (note that 眼 also means “hole”), and, figuratively, honest, lack of wily flexibility. It is sort of like 没心眼，the difference being, 没心眼 means no 心眼 at all while 实心眼 means not necessarily the absence of of 心眼，but the insistence on doing things in a more principled way. It is generally recognized that, in China, 实心眼吃亏 — if you are too principled, you stand to lose, you suffer, and you are dumb.

“I read somewhere that the Eskimos have a lot of words for snow; and heck, we Chinese have tons of words for 心眼!” [Link 2]

杀鸡给猴看

Joel 大江 — Sun, 06 Nov 2011 16:45:17 +0000

Pronounced: shā jī gĕi hóu kàn
Literally: kill a chicken, show the monkeys (also 杀鸡儆猴)
Means: punish or make an example of someone as a warning to others.

狗血

Joel 大江 — Tue, 11 Oct 2011 19:15:49 +0000

Pronounced: gǒu xiě
Literally: dog blood
Means: cheesy, cliché, melodramatic, contrived. As in, “This Korean soap opera is too dog blood!” 我看的韩国剧太狗血了！ Wǒ kànde hánguó jù tài gǒu xiě le!

I’ve wondered how to express “cheesy” in Chinese for a long time. The World of Chinese gives an interesting explanation of where this gory term came from and how it evolved into the meaning it has today.

汉奸

Joel 大江 — Sat, 17 Sep 2011 20:00:19 +0000

Pronounced: Hàn jiān
Means:
traitor of the Han (race);
traitor of the Chinese people;
sometimes translated “race-traitor”.

What you get called if you dare slander Chairman Mao (and thereby aid Western civilization in its quest to overthrow the Chinese civilization), like this guy.

For more on the psychological connection between the Chinese race, Chinese nationalism, the Chinese Communist Party, and China’s history with the West, see: Why Mainlanders are taking it personally, racially, and facially – the short answer

毛毛虫

Joel 大江 — Wed, 10 Aug 2011 23:34:20 +0000

Pronounced: máomao chóng
Literally: hair-hair worm
Means: caterpillar

And here’s a Chinese translation with English and pinyin mouseover pop-up of the classic children’s book “The Very Hungry Caterpillar“.

史丹利杯

Joel 大江 — Thu, 16 Jun 2011 01:49:13 +0000

史丹利杯

Pronounced: Shǐdānlì Bēi
Means: The Stanley Cup

加人

Pronounced: Jiārén
Means: Canucks

(Found this vocab here.)

爆炸、报复社会

Joel 大江 — Wed, 15 Jun 2011 05:12:10 +0000

爆炸

Pronounced: bàozhà
Means:
1. explosion; to explode.
2. What happened at a government building in Tianjin this week by a guy who wanted revenge on “society” (according to China’s state media). Example:
“An explosion happened at the front door of the Tianjin government.”
天津政府门前发生了爆炸。

报复社会

Pronounced: bàofù shèhuì
Means:
1. Get revenge on society.
2. The alleged motivation of the guy who set off a bomb at a government building in Tianjin this week.

痛宰 / 惨

Joel 大江 — Tue, 14 Jun 2011 06:00:19 +0000

Pronounced: tòng zǎi / cǎn
Means: “painfully slaughter” / “wretched; miserable; badly“.

Words used to describe a sports team getting its butt kicked. For example:
“Boston just totally slaughtered Vancouver.”
波士頓痛宰了温哥华！
“Vancouver lost miserably.”
温哥华输得很惨！