DigiTrends Your source for Chinese digital insights

Do you speak Chinternese?

Firstly let us be straight about the term "Chinese Netizens.”

Since the introduction of the internet in China in 1994, the size of the Chinese mobile and PC internet population has somewhat blossomed.

At the end of 2008 China had 298 million Netizens, 22.6% of the whole population of the country, according to CNNIC.net. This number went up to 485 million in July, 2011.

So "Chinese Netizens" refers to 485 million people who regularly go online whether it be on a mobile device or PC.

The amount of time spent online has increased to the point that internet addiction is an official clinical disorder with Internet Addiction boot camps around China.

There have even been instances where parents have sold their children to fund playing games at internet cafes.

It is not uncommon these days for Chinese Netizens to band together in their millions and, for example, expose corruption or solve hit and run incidents and then publically humiliate the suspect in a phenomenon called Human Flesh Search (人肉搜索 rén ròu sōu suǒ.)

So it is safe to say the opinion of internet users are reflections on the opinions of the vast majority of Chinese people.

And it’s not surprising that Chinese blog contents are often the topic of conversations between young people at parties, parties where people spend a lot of their time engrossed on their mobile blogging accounts rather than each other. The above picture is not an uncommon site.

Young people feel at ease when they chat online, especially when using the same up to date internet language.

Similar to other groups of people, Chinese netizens also have sought for a way to be unique but recognisable, modern but durable.

Internet language is increasingly composed of new words, terms or phrases. To speak of these words is to show you are trendy and up-to-date, so they are popular with university under and post graduates.

Here are some of the influences on China's evolving online lingo:

 

• Recent news

• Different Dialects

• Censorship

• Just showed up

Recent News

至于你信不信，反正我信 

Whether you believe it or not, I believe it

The Chinese Ministry of Railways spokesman Wáng yǒng píng 王勇平, in a public realtions disaster, said this this at a press conference on 23^rd July, 2011 intending to keep the public’s confidence on the actions taken by rescuers after two high-speed trains crashed in Wenzhou resulting in 40 deaths and 192 injuries.

In order to satirize this issue, large numbers of netizens quoted this sentence on their blog status or used it in various humorous or sarcastic contexts.

Below are subtitled video stills from the press conference with Wáng yǒng píng saying the famous phrase  “至于你信不信，反正我信了”

 

T-shirts printed with his phrase “至于你信不信，反正我信了” are sold on Taobao: a quick but innovative response to the often used internet phrase from the commercial market.

 

范跑跑 Fàn Pǎopǎo

The term stems from a primary school teacher called Fan who bolted from his class during the Sichuan earthquake in 2008 instead of helping his pupils. News of this was widely reported and debated online.

As a result, Netizens named him Fàn Pǎopǎo，literately meaning ‘running Fan’ (pictured below) and thereafter the Pǎo pǎo（跑跑）part was used after a person’s name in order to emphasize that person's cowardliness:

Borrowed From Different Dialects: 

给力 Gěilì

The word 给力gěilì meaning “awesome”, “cool” or “powerful”

In the last two years this is one of the most widely used words created by Netizens, which are commonly believed to originate from the slang dialect in Fujian province.

However, the term was not so widely spread until a Japanese cartoon “Rìhé 日和” became incredibly popular on social media, including Renren, Sina Weibo and MOP forum then a bit later on even state media.

 

A video cut from the Japanese cartoon “Rìhé” (日和漫画) with Chinese subtitles.

To the surprise Chinese Netizen’s it first surfaced from the internet in an article in the People’s Daily Newspaper, Rénmín Rìbào (人民日报) seen below; praising Jiangsu for their achievements on building a ‘culturally powerful province.’

The headline:

Jiāng sū gěilì wénhuà qiángshěng:

“Amazing/fabulous Jiangsu, a culturally strong province.”

 

An example of 给力 gěilì can be seen blow in this extract from popular blog “ChinaSmack.”

The picture is of a woman in Qingdao beach covering up all to avoid sunburn, attracting ridicule from the online public.  Underneath are the translated comments of Chinese netizens.

Gěilì can be seen in the first comment that reads literally “sweating, no ordinary awesome” 汗, 不是一般的给力, in this case sarcastically meaning “especially awesome.”

The first character 汗, meaning “sweating,” replaces the symbol normally used in online chatting.

From different accents:

有木有  yǒu mù yǒu

Recently, a three character phrase, a slant on the common 有没有 yǒu méi yǒu and approximately meaning “Yes or no??” was born of Chinese Netizens.

It is always placed at the end of either a sentence or a paragraph, but always along with exclamation marks.

As well expressing exclamation the phrase also makes fun of a northern dialect in China.

The popularity of “有木有!!!” used to express anger or depression, also brings to life the “roaring” (咆哮体 páo xiào tǐ) nature of blogging and chatting in China.

”有木有!!!” is used here to Páo xiào tǐ by some girls who failed to pass their maths exams, as a way to unleash their anxiety.

 

From censorship: 

Censorship has had possibly the largest influence on changing online language in China.

Swear words, deleted by censors as they are typed into a live blog or social network site, have been changed by Netizens to different characters with similar sounds to disguise them.

For instance the popular phrase cào nǐ mā (showing the characters for this would risk this article) which translates to a harsh phrase in English, (a curse at your maternal parent) was changed in around 2009 to look like “草泥马” (cǎo ní mǎ) in order to avoid the censors.

It sounds almost the same but uses these characters:

Chinese netizens use the new草泥马 cǎo ní mǎ regularly in conversations now.  Somehow the last character马mǎ (horse) became associated with the Alpaca, a South American camelid:

Now the animal, largely unknown in China previously, is a theme for stuffed toys and t-shirts sold in markets with the slogan  "草泥马” cǎo ní mǎ printed on the front:

 

Recently, the term cǎo ní mǎ surprisingly emerged on “非诚勿扰” Fei Cheng Wu Rao, one of the most popular TV-dating shows in mainland China from JSTV.

After being asked about the name of his pet Alpaca, (can't remember how many lights turned red from the ladies on that one) a male guest answered directly with 草泥马” Cǎo Ní Mǎ (shown below in the video stills), astonishing the audiences both on and offline as it’s not a particularly polite term.

From this case, especially with stuffed toys for sale displaying the insult we can boldly predict that the internet language will have an increasing influence and power in the society, especially in mass media.

 

Just showed up:

伤不起  Shāng Bù Qǐ

Meaning “things cannot get any worse” or “I cannot be hurt anymore,” no one can really tell where exactly 伤不起  shāng bù qǐ originated from but the phrase didn’t exist before 2011.

The term is usually placed alongside “有木有” as a way to express disappointment and to complain about a current situation.

In the above example blog status, a stressed out girl  laments about drinking water containers weighing 20kg are too heavy for her to lift.

She finishes by saying “伤不起!!!” A soft complaint suffix, as if to say “This is not happening!”

 

坑爹 Kēng Diē

The Chinese version of the Japanese cartoon “Rìhé” (日和漫画) also boosted another term’s popularity in 2010:

Currently it means “got trapped or conned”.  Netizens started using it to describe those untrustworthy ambitions, circumstances or people.

Below is a still from another chapter of “Rìhé” with “坑爹 kēng diē” in the subtitle.

Below is a screen grab of a blogger using  坑爹  kēng diē to grumble about the point of learning maths.

Spot another phrase mentioned earlier in this article also used by this blogger.

 

囧 jiǒng

An ancient word from around 476 BC, Zhan Guo Dynasty and has not been used for many centuries but in around 2008 came back onto fashion all round China.

The character's unique face-like features  started appearing in social media, forums and instant messaging because it enabled people to express their embarrassment in quite a novel way.

The character originally meant “patterned window” or simply “brightness,” but now rarely means that. Instead it now shares the same meaning as a similar sounding character 窘 jiǒng, meaning “embarrassment” or “depression.”

It is possible to predict that 囧 will be put in the modern dictionary again as it is a real Chinese character.

Its wide use has led to clothing brands adopting the image.

 

 

So what?

Whereas trendy words in English tend to come and go, in Chinese they linger and grow in popularity as they are embraced.

If the language changes too much then could this lead to intimidated authorities banning internet cafes? See this fascinating field study into the social significance of Chinese internet cafes. 

An interesting result of the spread of this internet language is the younger generation of Cantonese and Mandarin speakers joined by a common digital dialect.

As it is fashionable for young Chinese people to show they are up to date on all the latest internet lingo, so the popularity of internet language is not just for every day enjoyment. The different languages and cultures in China care being bridged by this constantly spreading online vocabulary, especially between Mandarin and Cantonese speaking areas.

Nowadays, speaking some Mandarin-originated internet terms or words is very welcome among young Cantonese speakers, something not commonly seen in the past.

Internet lingo pouring out into everyday conversations confirms that societal changes in China are starting from the bottom and that the internet is becoming more and more influential.