疗伤系 (liáo shāng xì)
soother, balm
First used to refer to a style of song featured in a Japanese album that is characterized by soothing melodies, the expression now refers to any cultural product that can set your mind at rest. It is also used to refer to a kind of person that is gentle and endearing.

学院风 (xúe yuàn fēng)
preppy style
This term means a dress style that can be traced back to students or graduates of expensive preparatory schools in the United States. It includes denim shirts, V-necked sweaters and pencil trousers.

温吞水 (wēn tūn shǔi)
tepid, apathetic
This phrase has been used as a colloquial expression in Shanghai dialect for many decades and remains very alive in everyday conversation today. It refers to a person who lacks interest or enthusiasm in doing things or tends to go about duties or chores at a snail’s pace.

恐婚族 (kǒng hūn zú)
marriage-shy clan
The term is used to describe some young people who are extremely afraid of making the commitment to get married. The same people are totally at ease with pursuing dating relationships.

太超过世代 (tài chāo guò shí dài)
exceptional generation
The term, first publicly used by Peggy Chiao, chairwoman of Taiwan's Golden Horse Film Awards and well-known movie critic, refers to a group of young Taiwan directors. The word "exceptional" here means extremely talented and outstanding. This generation of directors includes Wei Te-sheng, who made "Cape No.7,"a blockbuster Taiwanese hit.

糖水片 (táng shǔi piàn)
aesthetic photo
The term translates literally as a "sugar water photo."It refers to the portrait or scenery photos that feature aesthetic techniques and superficial beauty but lack significance or meaning. "Sugar water"sounds similar to "Pond water"in Chinese and the latter is deemed by some shutterbugs as a sine qua non in scenery photos.

奥布 (ào bù)
dirty trick
The term originates from the dialect of southern Fujian Province and means cunning thoughts or methods that are used to reach a certain goal. It was extensively used during the election of local leaders in Taiwan as some candidates were discovered employing unfair or unlawful methods to collect votes in support of particular candidates.

衰退达人 (shui tui da ren)
recessionista
The term refers to those who are adept at changing their consumption habits during the severe economic downturn. Contrary to the "fashionista"who are in blind pursuit of labels, they advocate a kind of thrift -permanent, steady, moderate and positive consumption in order to minimize the impact of a recession. They are expert in sourcing discounts to buy what is cheap but chic.

草食男 (cao3 shi2 nan2)
herbivorous man
It refers to men who are gentle and very polite toward women. But they rarely take the initiative or an aggressive approach to court the female they love. Instead, they tend to keep a lukewarm relationship with them.

机械舞 (ji1 xie4 wu3)
popping dance
A type of dance similar to break dance, which features tightening and flexing of the muscles, just like a robot.

炒婚 (chao3 hun1)
wedding fanfare
China's champion gymnast Yang Wei disputes online criticism of his ostentatious wedding ceremony, saying love for his bride Yang Yun was his focus and some of the luxurious aspects were from sponsoring businesses.

末端时尚 (mo4 duan1 shi2 shang4)
tip-top fashion 
It refers to trendy hairstyling and manicures pursued by many young women. As the makeover involves the woman's head hair and fingernails and toes, it is hence called "tip-top" fashion.

快速时尚 (kuai4 su4 shi2 shang4)
fast fashion
Also known as high-street fashion, it involves shoppers getting the latest clothes just a few weeks after they first appear on the catwalk and at reasonable prices.

私享家 (si1 xiang3 jia1)
person of free spirit
The word is a homonym with "thinker" in Chinese and means literally a "person of private enjoyment." But it actually refers to people who pursue health, leisure and an independent lifestyle. They have their own ideas, pick their own place to stay and share leisure time with family and friends, but always keep some time for their own. They also tend to maintain a place of privacy in their heart and try to "privatize" their enjoyment.

涉黑 (she4 hei1)
gang-related crimes
Chinese rock musician Zang Tianshuo has been arrested by Beijing police for a suspected role in several gangland activities. It is the tip of a social problem in which a few government officials and celebrities are in cahoots with local gangsters.

好人卡 (hao3 ren2 ka3)
nice guy card
This is today's answer to the "dear John letter" of the 1940s. A girl may turn down an admirer by saying "You are a nice guy, but I'm sorry we are not suitable." So if a guy says he has "received a nice guy card" that means he has been rejected. The "card" has also developed into "nice guy pop culture." Some designers are creating "nice guy" cards and sell them online.

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考碗族 (kao3 wan3 zu2)
civil servant test sitter
Against the backdrop of the global recession, more young Chinese people nowadays look for a secure job as a civil servant, usually nicknamed as the "gold rice bowl." So, they all sit for the examinations designed for winning such jobs. Chinese traditionally refer to a stable job as an "iron rice bowl."

洗澡蟹 (xi3 zao4 xie4)
bathed crab
Late autumn and early winter is the season for hairy crabs, one of the most favored delicacies of people living in Shanghai and its surrounding areas. Among hairy crabs, those produced from the Yangcheng Lake are deemed as the very best and people are willing to pay big money for them. Crooked dealers, however, tend to bring in cheaper, and perhaps inferior, crabs from other places and dip them in the Yangcheng Lake for a few days or weeks. They then sell those "bathed crabs" as the genuine product for higher prices.

金融海啸 (jin1 rong2 hai3 xiao4)
financial tsunami
People often use the expression to describe, if not exaggerate, the current financial crisis that is looming large across the world.

长跑令 (chang2 pao3 ling4)
long jog requirement
The Chinese Ministry of Education has asked students across the country to take a long jog every morning from October 26 through to April 30, in an attempt to improve their physical condition. Under the plan, grade-five and grade-six students will run 1,000 meters per day, middle school students 1,500 meters, and high school and university students 2,000 meters. The compulsory jogging has attracted protests from parents who worry their children will be too tired after the morning exercises to focus on their studies.

民间食神 (min2 jian1 shi2 shen2)
popular foodie
The term refers to ordinary gastronomes who are fond of sharing their experiences on Websites and making comments on restaurants that they have visited. They have been attracting a growing number of followers and beginning to influence the culinary trends among the public and even in the catering industry.

螺蛳壳 (luo2 si1 ke2)
tiny space, small apartment
The Chinese term literally means a "snail shell," but it is used figuratively to describe a tiny space or a very small apartment.

民心工程 (min2 xin1 gong1 cheng2)
heart-winning project
It refers to a project which benefits ordinary people, such as building affordable housing for low-income earners.

鸡冻 (ji1 dong4)
excited
The term means literally "chicken jelly." Since its pronunciation is the same as the word "excited" in Chinese, it is usually used in online context to replace the conventional phrase.

虚拟经济 (xǖ nǐ jīng jì)
fictitious economy
This term refers to transactions involving securities, futures and financial derivatives. Due to the current global financial crisis, this term appears frequently in newspapers and daily conservation. It is the opposite of the “real economy” or “substantial economy.”

道德扶贫 (dào dé fú pín)
moral poverty relief
In reporting the recent melamine-laced milk scandal in China, some media point out that the government and all social sectors in the country should not only pay attention to the material poverty in rural areas, but also their moral poverty.

乐触族 (lè chù zú)
LOTAF
The term stands for “lifestyle of touch and fun.” It refers to people who are interested in and enjoy using touch screen digital devices, such as iTouch and iPhone.

润物女 (rùn wù nǚ)
woman of active life
This is a phrase coined by Chinese and used as the opposite to the Japanese term “himono onna” or “dried-fish woman.” The Japanese term refers to a female who has little activity other than staying home and spending time online. They pursue a simple lifestyle and shy away from complicated social networking. The Chinese term refers to women who love going out, keep fit and enjoy life.

封口费 (fēng kǒu fèi)
hush money
The term can be used formally or informally. People sometimes jokingly demand hush money from their friends for keeping a secret between them. But this word attracted nationwide attention recently as dozens of journalists from various Chinese media organizations were found to take hush money for not reporting a fatal coal mine accident.

正太控 (zhèng tài kòng)
shota complex
The word “shota,” derived from Japanese cartoons, refers to those thin and weak Asian boys aged between 3 to 13 years old usually in shorts. Some people, mostly females, take a fancy to comics and stories featuring such characters and pay extra attention to them. They are known to have a shota complex.

碟托 (díe tūo)
album shill
These shills usually post their opinions or comments on online bulletin boards about a newly-released album to earn money from the record company. They will either be hired to boast about a certain record or attack records issued by rival firms.

纯净水 (chún jìng shǔi)
post without content
The term translates verbatim to “purified water,” but it is often used to describe those online posts that contain little substantial content. It is related to another Chinese term “guanshui,?or 搃rrigation,?in its literal sense, referring to Web bloggers uploading tons of nonsense to earn more online credits.

首席忽悠官 (shǒu xí hū you guān)
CHO
The H here is short both for “human resources” and the Chinese pinyin for huyou (or coaxing). Young people playfully call the human resources workers as CHO these days because they believe in many cases the HRs are trying to paint a rosy picture of their companies for job seekers, against the fears of a global economic recession.

公司腐败官(gong1 si1 fu3 bai4 guan1)
CFO
The term means Corporate Fraud Officer here, not chief financial officer. It is another example of borrowing and twisting the meaning of an existing term.

排(pai2)
agreed
At online chat rooms, Netizens use this Chinese word, meaning literally to queue or line up, to express their agreement to an opinion. It roughly means to get into the queue or stand in the same line as others.

自来熟(zi4 lai2 shu2)
naturally chummy, gregarious
It refers to people who tend to willingly and instantly befriend strangers or newcomers. Some people like this kind of "instant befriending"attitude, but others loathe it.

抢抢族 (qiang3 qiang3 zu4)
online bargain hunter
Some young people are hooked online and keep an eagle eye on the limited number of gifts and bargains offered by a business and lose no time to take the offer and get the services.

黑屏 (hei1 ping2)
black screen
It's the latest Microsoft scheme to fight piracy. It replaces the screen wallpaper of a computer using pirated Microsoft Windows and Office software with a black screen every hour when the computer is turned on.

立升 (li4 sheng1)
high-heeled clout
The word in Shanghai dialect originally describes the volume of a container. A person with "volume"now means a high-heeled investor or a person with clout.

娃妈 (wa2 ma1)
doll mommy
This term refers to some young women who spend a lot of time with ball-joint dolls. They "adopt"(buy) dolls and treat them like their own kids. The dolls, mostly made in Japan and South Korea, look realistic and cuddly with large heads and big eyes.

打鸡血 (da3 ji1 xue3)
get excited, be stimulated
The word literally means injecting chicken blood, a fad in the late 1960s in China as a way to boost one's health. Now, it is often used to describe someone getting excited or stimulated.

跟风 (gen1 feng1)
copycat, follow blindly
A copycat is a person who mimics other people. The word means someone following a trend often in a blind way.

零绯闻 (ling2 fei3 wen2)
gossip-free
While some mediocre showbiz artists, especially actresses, tend to fabricate love stories and have them published to attract attention, others just walk all the way to stardom and even to an accomplished retirement without any such gossip.

豆腐帐 (dou4 fu1 zhang4)
tofu ledger
The term was used to describe account books made by tofu street sellers who wrote down each sale clearly and counted all the costs and profits at the end of each month. But now it refers to detailed accounts of personal expenditure. Many white-collar workers today love to jot down and share their everyday spending record on the Internet.

打飞的 (da3 fei1 di1)
hail air taxi
Some people take planes as ordinary taxis to somewhere simply for shopping or an examination. People jokingly call it "hailing an air taxi." For example, more than 200 students from a city in southwest China took planes to Hong Kong during the National Day holidays to take the American Scholastic Aptitude Test, one equivalent of China's college entrance examination.

电脑脸 (dian4 nao3 lian3)
computer face
Despite its many positive attributes, the Internet does change people's lifestyle. After spending hours in front of a computer every day, people gradually look haggard, expressionless, dour and numb to real life and other people. They all have a "computer face."

待机消费 (dai4 ji1 xiao1 fei4)
optimal buy
This Chinese phrase comprises two parts, the first meaning literally the "standby mode" of a mobile phone and the second part "consumption." Since the first part can also be interpreted as "waiting for an opportunity" in Chinese, this phrase is now used to mean "consumption at an optimum time," such as purchasing consumer goods during a sales or promotion season. It's the opposite of "impulsive purchase."

看野眼 (kan4 ye3 yan3)
look around distractedly
This is a colloquial term in Shanghai dialect meaning looking around aimlessly, absent-mindedly and distractedly. Traffic authorities say many road accidents have resulted from motorists looking away from the road in an absent-minded or distracted manner.

震撼 (zhen4 han4)
shocked, dumbfounded
As a general tendency, Netizens love to use powerful or exaggerated words and phrases to express their feelings. So, they usually employ this Chinese phrase meaning literally "shocking" or "shocked" to say that they are surprised.

网申 (wang3 shen1)
apply online
Internet has saved job applicants the trouble of whirlwind visits to human resources offices of companies but the flip side of the story is that only a precious few of their applications on the Internet will get an answer.

以房养老 (yi3 fang2 yang3 lao3)
house-for-pension scheme
This term refers to a new scheme to increase the income of senior citizens in the city. People who are 65 or older are qualified to sell their home to the city’s Housing Fund, but they can continue to live in it by paying a market-level rent to the fund. Although different from the reverse mortgage scheme, it also allows seniors to access the equity in their home.

死党 (si3 dang3)
sworn friend
The Chinese expression originally means a diehard follower but is often used these days by youngsters in reference to their own very close friends who they believe will never let them down in whatever situation.

孤儿(gu1 er2)
office loner
This term, meaning literally "orphan," is often used by young people to refer to an office worker who is isolated, or chooses to be isolated, by others, either because of his or her bad behavior, disputable character or other problems.

植物人 (zhi2 wu4 ren2)
plant lover
It is used these days in reference to eco-conscious people who like to grow plants near their homes. The Chinese term literally means a person in a comatose state.

淘客(tao2 ke4)
online shopper
The term refers to those who search online for goods they like to purchase via a relatively safe third-party transaction platform. The phrase took off when taobao.com, a local C2C online shopping Website, became more and more popular.

寒促 (han2 cu4)
winter promotion
It refers to sales promotions initiated by IT firms during the winter vacation or Chinese Lunar New Year holiday seasons.

卡神 (ka3 shen2)
card manipulator
The term is the opposite to "card slave," people who borrow from one credit card to pay off debts on another credit card and live on the edge of bankruptcy. The card veterans can make the most of their credit cards or membership cards to earn points and benefits.

美丽垃圾(mei3 li4 la1 ji1)
beautiful garbage
The phrase refers to the over-extravagant gift packing made of materials such as metal, glass, silk or even rosewood. Despite the beautiful look, people usually throw it away after unpacking, causing a big waste.

急婚族(ji2 hun1 zu2)
hasty marriage clan
It refers to those who marry hastily, mostly under the pressure from work or family or after waiting too long to find the right partner.

利好 (l14 hao3)
bullish news, favorable news
It refers to any news, like a positive earnings report or favorable policies by the government, that drives up the price of a company's shares.

网恋 (wang3 lian4)
BBS love, virtual love
Internet-based love is also one of the spin-offs of the modern world and it either comes to nothing, grows into true love, or plays into a cunning hand.

软装 (ruan3 zhuang1)
soft decoration
The arrangement of potted plants, framed photos, oil paintings and other artworks or accessories in a house is called soft decoration, as compared to the interior decoration featuring plumbing and flooring.

软性技能 (ruan3 xing4 ji4 neng2)
soft skill
In addition to professional know-how, an employee will be viewed favorably by an employer if he or she possesses personal qualities such as good communication and expression skills and a strong team spirit.

草台 (cao3 tai2)
makeshift; low-quality
This term usually refers to a makeshift stage used for providing entertainment performances in rural areas. Now it is widely used to mean anything that is makeshift, or of low quality.

架空历史 (jia4 kong1 li4 shi3)
alternate history
Also called virtual history or alternative history. It is a mixture of speculative fiction, science fiction and historical fiction. Usually set in a fantasy world whose history has diverged from the actual world, alternate history literature asks the question,  "What if history had developed differently?"

素质场 (su4 zhi4 chang3)
Cheat-you-out-of-your-pocket place
The term literally means "a place of quality." It refers to some restaurants or other entertainment venues where sexy women lure men into unreasonably expensive services, such as a small glass of ordinary wine for an astronomical price. These women, however, never go to bed with men. Cheated men often cannot complain, as they are lured by sex in the first place. These men are then ironically called "men of quality."

饕客 (tao1 ke4)
Gourmet
The Chinese term is a bit humorous. It is not just about any gourmet. It refers to a gourmet who eats in wild joy.

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