Actress-turned entrepreneur upsets netizens

Zhang Meng expects her employees to be working through the night

Apr 24, 2021

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This week:

Words from China’s gaming world (电竞圈用语) that have crossed over into politics and society, and some idioms from UN Chinese Language Day (联合国中文日).

Internet word of the week: 爷青结 (Yé qīng jié)
“I’m done with this!”
Speech of the week: Xi at Boao - a mistranslated gaming word
带节奏 (Dài jiézòu) - “set the tempo”
Video of the week: UN Chinese Chinese Language Day - favourite idioms of Britain’s Ambassador to China
雨过天晴 (Yǔguò tiān qíng) - ‘the skies will clear after the rain has fallen’

1. Internet Word of the Week: 爷青结 (Yé qīng jié) - I’m done with this

爷青结 (Yé qīng jié) is short for:

爷的青春结束了 (Yé de qīngchūn jiéshùle) - my youth has come to an end

It was originally used by Chinese gamers to say they had peaked in a game, their best was behind them.

Nowadays, netizens say it when they boycott celebs who have had a self-inflicted career car crash (翻车事件 - see 27 March newsletter):

I’ve had enough / I am done with this

This week, Chinese netizens had enough of actress-turned entrepreneur, Zhang Meng, who was a guest commentator on a dating show.

Zhang’s comments on “pulling an all-nighter” (熬夜 - Áo yè) were the problem - and will sound familiar to anyone who has worked in or with a Chinese company:

我凌晨三四点钟还在给我的员工发微信。但是他们可以不回啊！他们说最害怕的是我三四点钟发了一个任务之后，早上7点钟，我说我已经发了四个小时了，你为什么还不会？
I'm still sending Wechat messages to my employees at 3 and 4 in the morning. But they don’t have to respond…. What they most fear is when I message them at 3 in the morning and I ask them at 7 in the morning: why haven’t you responded yet?

During the show her words were taken in good humour, with a few laughs from the audience.

But Weibo users were not so forgiving. Top comments included:
没有下班概念，真的是中国职场最大的悲哀。老板可以在任何时候让你去做事 - You have no concept of finishing the working day. This is the saddest thing about the Chinese workplace. The boss [thinks she] can ask you to do anything at any time.

Zhang Meng eventually made what could just about pass as an apology on Weibo:
以后坚决改正，感谢广大网友的指正批评 - From now on I will commit to correcting [my mistakes]. Thank you to Internet users for your corrections and criticisms.

Not surprisingly that didn’t go down too well. With many saying they’ve had enough of her:
爷青结。而且大姐，大家是因为你资本家嘴脸才讨厌你，你不会以为我们关心你熬夜不熬夜吧? - I’ve had enough. Also, people hate because you are a selfish capitalist. You don’t really think we care about you pulling an all-nighter, do you?

More useful words

Self-harming work practices aside, grumpy comments from Chinese netizens are a great resource for picking up some new Chinese words.

Here are some three-character combos for the work place, or to criticise the latest apologising Chinese celeb:

打工狗 (Dǎgōng gǒu) - ‘working dog’, a variation of ‘working people’ (打工人) [see 10th April issue for more on this]
作为一个打工狗看到这种新闻都气出来了 - as a working dog, when I see news like this I get so angry
炒鱿鱼 (Chǎoyóuyú) - ‘fried squid’, fired
真想炒她鱿鱼 - I’d really like to fire her
没网感 (Méi wǎng gǎn) - ‘no Internet sense’, out of date or out of touch with the latest Internet trends; ‘no sense’ [this is a very new word - expect to hear it more as China’s cancel culture continues to grow]
她真的很没网感 - she really has no idea
代入感 (Dàirù gǎn) - immersive; “it’s like I am there” [another gaming word, meaning ‘immersive’ or realistic effects]
代入感很强，社畜已经在心脏加速了 - It’s like we are there [in her office], people’s heart rates are going up [社畜 - ‘the people’ was covered in the 10th April newsletter]

2. Setting the pace

Xi gave an opening speech at the 20th Boao Forum this week.

I’ve picked out one word from the official English translation which doesn’t fully capture the meaning:

带节奏 dài jiézòu - “set the pace”
国际上的事应该由大家共同商量着办，世界前途命运应该由各国共同掌握，不能把一个或几个国家制定的规则强加于人，也不能由个别国家的单边主义给整个世界“带节奏”
World affairs should be handled through extensive consultation, and the future of the world should be decided by all countries working together. We must not let the rules set by one or a few countries be imposed on others, or allow unilateralism pursued by certain countries to set the pace for the whole world.

带节奏 dài jiézòu was originally used by Chinese gamers to praise experienced players with good leadership skills able to organise, and set the pace, to lead their teammates to victory:

带起一波节奏 (dài qǐ yī bō jiézòu) - “bringing up a wave of rhythm”

But ‘set the pace’ here means something more like ‘misleading public opinion’ or leading other countries against the interests of China.

So, while the official translation of ‘setting the pace’ is not entirely wrong, it certainly does not give the full impact of the Chinese.

For advanced learners, other ways to say the same thing include:

无中生有 (wúzhōng shēngyǒu) - “create something out of nothing” [confusingly, this also means something like entrepreneurial “chutzpah” for ballsy entrepreneurs that talk a good game]
煽动惑乱 (shāndòng huòluàn) - inciting confusion
煽风点火 (shānfēng diǎnhuǒ) - fanning the flames

3. Video of the week: UN Chinese language day 联合国中文日

The 11th UN World Chinese Language Day was on 20 April.

British Ambassador to China, Caroline Wilson, recorded a short video sharing her favourite Chinese idioms - all useful for life in China.

Here are the idioms, and I’ve added an example sentence under each one:

和而不同 (Hé ér bùtóng) - a safe choice; Confucian classic and also a fave of Xi Jinping re China’s position on its non-interventionist place in the world and BRI. It means: “Harmony without uniformity” or “Harmony in Diversity”
子曰：“君子和而不同，小人同而不和 - Confucius said: “The gentleman aims at harmony, and not at uniformity. The mean man aims at uniformity, and not at harmony.”
欲速则不达 (Yù sù zé bù dá) - another Confucian one, similar to the English idiom, ‘haste makes waste’.
做事要一步一步循序渐进地做，否则欲速则不达 - things should be done step by step and gradually, otherwise if you rush you will not achieve the goal
雨过天晴 (Yǔguò tiān qíng) - ‘the skies will clear after the rain has fallen’
后来她又透过泪水现出一线微笑，就像雨过天晴后露出的太阳 - afterwards she flashed a smile through her tears; it was like the sun appearing after heavy rains

Odds and ends

Finally, here’s a few things I’ve read or watched this week worth recommending:

FT: HSBC chief vows not to ‘flip-flop’ on China strategy // Readers of last week’s newsletter will know of the challenges of translating the word ‘flip flop’ which can be translated as 折腾, or vice versa. In this instance, HSBC “not flip-flopping” can be translated as 不要翻来覆去, but almost definitely also as 不折腾 as it also means to avoid causing unnecessary, self-inflicted troubles.
RFI: 王岐山博鳌开幕式自称为习近平“报幕” 有指战战兢兢？ // An obscure gossipy article about Wang Qishan’s unscripted remarks as MC at Boao this week. His off the cuff comments are always worth a read:
“首先说明啊，我不是致辞，在这次博鳌亚洲论坛的全体会议上，致辞的是…….习近平主席，但是呢，主办方……我到场了大家总要给我安排个角色。
我领会呢，这个角色就是做一个临时主持人，临时主持人也很重要。我只是为我们的习近平主席的致辞做一个报幕。[报幕 Bàomù - ‘announce the screen’ is a self-deprecating way to say ‘kick proceedings off’]

Youtube: Chinese Language Day video. A slick one-hour show produced by Chinese Media Group with a polished, British presenter and one of China’s biggest influencers (Li Ziqi 李子柒) wheeled out for the occasion. It’s a bit stodgy in places, and the presenter does a remarkable job of mangling the Chinese names, but there are some good bits too.

Highlights:

2’55”: Li Ziqi video - no words at all just incredible images of the Chinese countryside and delicious food.
15’42”: Chen Xu, China Permanent Rep to the UN, speech - good for language learners as he has perfect pronunciation and speaks slowly, with a few good idioms about spring.
21’16”: Vlog following a climb to visit 悬崖村 (Xuányá cūn) - “cliff edge village” in Sichuan Province, which is perched at the top of a steep mountain with 1,800 steps to climb to get there. It’s also a poster-child village in China’s poverty alleviation efforts.

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