Slang of the Week
“Triple fold”
三折叠 (sān zhé dié) — what it means, where it comes from, and how to use it
“Triple fold”
What it means
This phrase has two parts:
- “Three” (三 sān), the number.
- “To fold” (折叠 zhé dié), the ordinary word for folding something up.
“The triple fold” (三折叠) is the name Chinese netizens use for Huawei’s Mate XT — the first phone in the world with a screen that folds in three — and, by extension, for the tri-fold phone as an object of desire.
Unlike most slang in this series, it mostly means exactly what it says. The slang part is what happened to it next.
Where it comes from
Huawei released the Mate XT in September 2024: the first triple-folding phone, at a price of 19,999 yuan. It instantly became a status symbol, so sought-after that resale prices climbed above the retail price, and netizens joked that the phone was really a “wealth-management product” (理财产品).
What turned it into a phrase, though, was the advertising line that went with it:
“The triple fold: however you fold it, you look good.”
三折叠，怎么折，都有面。
The line turns on the last character: “face” (面) means both a surface — this phone folds into many of them — and face in the sense of “having face” (有面子), the prestige of being seen with one.
Netizens took the ad line and rewrote it. The rewrite went viral:
“The triple-fold wallet: however you fold it, there’s still no money.”
三折叠钱包，怎么折，都没钱。
The joke made the phrase bigger than the phone: the aspirational object on one side, and the flat wallet of the person dreaming about it on the other.
The triple fold is not Huawei’s only gift to the Chinese internet. The other is “far, far ahead” (遥遥领先) — the catchphrase of Huawei executive Yu Chengdong (余承东), who once said it 14 times in a single launch event. Netizens turned it into a meme for any over-confident boast, and it was named one of the top ten internet buzzwords of 2023. Yu eventually defended himself: “Sometimes I say it at most once per launch — sometimes not at all. I only say it when we’re leading by a lot.” (只有在这个领域领先比较多的时候才会说。)
How to use it
“The triple fold” (三折叠) is used for the phone itself, or in the rewritten form as a joke about your own finances.
Talking about the phone:
“Many middle-aged men dream of owning their own triple-fold.”
许多中年男性，都渴望拥有自己的三折叠。
Spotting one in the wild:
“A colleague turned up with a triple-fold. The whole meeting room was looking at his phone, not the screen.”
同事带了个三折叠来开会，整个会议室都在看他的手机。
The joke:
“My triple-fold wallet — nothing in it however you fold it.”
我的三折叠钱包，怎么折都没钱。
Now it’s your turn
Netizens have turned the ad line into a whole genre of self-mockery. Try writing your own version, using the wallet joke as your model:
三折叠＿＿，怎么折，都＿＿。
(“Triple-fold ＿＿: however you fold it, still ＿＿.”)
Make a sentence and hit reply to this email — I look at every response!