Slang of the Week
“Switching on an external plug-in”
开挂 (kāi guà) — what it means, where it comes from, and how to use it
“Switching on an external plug-in”
What it means
This phrase has two parts:
- “To switch on” (开 kāi), the ordinary verb for turning something on or firing something up.
- “Plug-in” (挂 guà), short for “external plug-in” (外挂), which is third-party cheat software hooked into an online game to give you auto-levelling or infinite health.
This is something bolted onto the game where it doesn’t belong. So “switching on the plug-in” (开挂) means performing way better than normal, so it looks like you must be cheating.
In English it means: “to be on cheat mode”. It’s usually said admiringly, with a note of disbelief — because nobody is supposed to be that good unaided.
Where it comes from
This phrase comes from the first wave of Chinese online gaming in the early 2000s.
As international online games spread through China’s internet cafés, so did “external plug-ins” (外挂), which were cheat programs that hooked into the game and made a player effectively unbeatable. Using one would get you banned.
“Switching on the plug-in” (开挂) was what you accused someone of when their performance made no sense.
The phrase moved beyond gaming and crossed into ordinary Chinese as a way of describing anyone whose run of success looks superhuman, like the student with perfect scores, the athlete who wins everything, the colleague promoted three times in two years.
A whole genre of phrase grew around it, like “a life on cheat mode” (开挂的人生).
By the 2020s it was everywhere. One headline from January 2022, about the skier Eileen Gu (谷爱凌), shows how far it had travelled from gaming:
“Champion titles by the armful — even in the fashion world, she’s on cheat mode.”
“天才少女”冠军拿到手软，混时尚圈也很开挂。
One early game where external plug-ins ran wild was Legend of Mir (热血传奇), the smash hit that launched China’s online gaming era in 2001. It became the country’s biggest game, with hundreds of thousands of players online at once at its peak. It was also the golden age of the “external plug-in” (外挂). Cheat programs with names like “Timely Rain” (及时雨) and “Simple Plug-in” (简单挂) became almost as famous as the game itself, offering auto-fighting, auto-looting, and impossible speed.
How to use it
“On cheat mode” (开挂) is everyday spoken Chinese now, used far beyond gaming.
You can use it for any run of results too good to be true, usually admiringly.
Talking about a colleague:
“His whole career has been on cheat mode.”
他的职业生涯一路开挂。
Watching sport:
“Three medals in one Games? She’s basically on cheat mode.”
一届比赛拿三块奖牌，她简直是开了挂。
A note of caution:
“Even for someone as unstoppable as she is, life will come to a screeching halt at some point.”
一路开挂的人生也有刹车的一天。
Now it’s your turn
Think of the person in your life whose results make no sense. The one who must be cheating somehow.
Describe them in Chinese:
＿＿一路开挂。
Make a sentence and hit reply to this email — I look at every response!
And try it in a real conversation this week.