From Auras to Babies, China’s Top Five Phrases of 2015

Earlier this month, China, Japan, Singapore, Malaysia and Taiwan all picked their top words for 2015 – but some Chinese state media and a professional linguistic magazine have gone a step further, crowning their own top phrases for the year. Below are five of China Real Time’s favorites. The first four phrases were selected by several organizations including state broadcaster China Central Television, the Communist Party’s mouthpiece People’s Daily newspaper, the government-run National Language Resources Monitoring and Research Center and linguistic monthly magazine Yaowen Jiaozi. The last one was chosen by state media but was left off the linguistic magazine’s list. As it happens, all five phrases are related to the Internet or were made popular by China’s online community. Take a look at them and see how your Web savviness measures up. 1. “Internet Plus” (“互联网+” in Chinese, “Hu Lian Wang Jia” in pinyin) This phrase was popularized by Chinese Premier Li Keqiang in his government work report in March. With China’s economic growth declining, the country’s leaders are drawing inspiration from other countries’ initiatives, such as the idea of the “industrial Internet” in the U.S. and Germany’s concept of Industrie 4.0. China’s official Xinhua News Agency defines “Internet Plus” as the “integration of the Internet and traditional industries through online platforms and IT.” To put it more directly, the government encourages its people to do everything with the Internet. 2. ”Maker” (“创客” in Chinese, “Chuang Ke” in Pinyin) This word is borrowed from Western contemporary technological do-it-yourself culture. Different from those who invent new software, the term “maker” refers to people who design and create new physical objects such as electronic devices. As with “Internet Plus,” Mr. Li has expanded the term to have a broader meaning, including the Chinese startups who open their own businesses with innovative ideas. Again, with the background of the country’s slowing economy, Chinese authorities have been encouraging mass innovation and entrepreneurship. One of the state-run media’s popular buzzwords, “coworking space” ( 众创空间 in Chinese), is closely related to “maker” and is also originally from the Western world. Coworking space provides a solution to two of the problems many startups face: isolation and high rent. 3. “Focus on my aura,” or “Mainly judge (my) in-look (not my out-look)” (“主要看气质” in Chinese, “Zhu Yao Kan Qi Zhi” in Pinyin) In late November, Taiwanese singer Cyndi Wang posted a photo on China’s popular Weibo social media platform. The photo shows Ms. Wang striking a sexy pose while holding a hamburger. Internet users commented on the photo that they didn’t understand the context and Ms. Wang responded, “主要看气质.” The phrase swiftly became a Chinese Internet meme, and many users posted photos of themselves making all kinds of gestures and expressions accompanied by the caption, “主要看气质.” Days later, with off-the-charts air pollution sweeping across much of northern China, Internet users translated the same five Chinese characters in another way: “God wants to see the air quality.” (主要 can mean “God wants” as well as “mainly,” and “气质” means “air quality” in addition to “aura.”)4. “Baby”, (“宝宝” in Chinese, “Baobao” in Pinyin) Here “baby” doesn’t mean a real infant — it’s the people who use this phrase as a first-person pronoun to refer themselves and jokingly proclaim themselves cute. For this slang term, the most commonly-used phrase is, “It scares the baby to death!” which actually means, “It scares me to death!” 5. “You city folk really know how to live it up” (“你们城里人真会玩” or “城会玩” in Chinese, “Ni Men Cheng Li Ren Zhen Hui Wan,” or “Cheng Hui Wan” in Pinyin) The last and trickiest one is Cheng Hui Wan, “You city folk really know how to live it up.” To be more accurate, it is a phrase to criticize the behavior of urbanites, and its full interpretation should be, “We can’t understand the way you city folk behave.” The origin of this phrase is hard to find. According to China’s Wikipedia-like online encyclopedia Baidu Baike, there are two possible stories. One is about a man who was shooting a film and tried to make the paparazzi believe he was a famous actor. The paparazzi uploaded his pictures and sent them out on Weibo. But it turned out to be a mistake—the man wasn’t the famous actor. Then he sent a post saying, “你们城里人真会玩.” Superficially, it’s a saying used to demean oneself and to raise up others, but in fact, its tone is less complimentary and includes more innuendo. Ms. Huang Anjing, the chief editor of linguistic monthly Yaowen Jiaozi, summed up her opinion of the phrase, which her magazine chose not to include on its list. “Cheng Hui Wan is indeed very popular this year online. But we didn’t choose it since we believe it will make people think there is a contrasting feeling between [China’s] urban and rural areas. We don’t want to bring about any misunderstanding that there is such a feeling in China.” According to the China Internet Network Information Center, as of July 2015, there are 668 million Internet users in China — almost half of the entire population. But among them, only 27.9% live in rural areas.