Oct. 5
Date:2008-10-04
topless man
The word literally means "shoulder grandpa"in Chinese. It refers to men who like to walk on the street topless during summer. Having long been criticized in the media and by the public, the phenomenon almost disappeared from Beijing streets during the Olympics but has not gone completely.
晚托班 (wan3 tu1o ban1)
after-school care service
Many working parents share a common plight in being unable to find suitable carers for their young children after school until they get home in the late afternoon. Now, some organizations such as the neighborhood committees have established after-school care centers for the youngsters.
带薪郁闷假 (dai4 xin1 yu4 men4 jia4)
paid distress day-off
It's a newly introduced paid holiday provided by some Chinese companies. In a year, an employee is allowed a day off for no reason, as long as he or she feels distressed. Under this arrangement, the company pays the person's wage for that day.
雷词 (lei2 ci2)
shocking word
The Chinese term, which literally means "thunder word,"refers to newly-coined shocking and outrageous words or phrases. They are extremely popular in online chat rooms and blogs.
湖绿(hu2 lv4)
fraud
"Green Lake,"as the term means in Chinese, refers to cooked-up story. It originated in a popular bbs where someone identified as "green Lake"claimed he had watched a dramatic film which didn't exist. Now his online name is synonymous with falsehood or fiction in online conversation.
什锦八宝饭 (shi2 jin3 ba1 bao3 fan4)
Jin-Bao fans
The fan club named after a Chinese dessert is actually a fan base of Chinese President Hu Jintao and Premier Wen Jiabao. The official website of The People's Daily, run by the Chinese Communist Party, created a special site for them, called "Jin and Bao Fans"(http://politics.people.com.cn/GB/8198/132796/index.html) on September 4.
土食族 (tu3 shi2 zu2)
locavore
A locavore is someone who eats food grown or produced locally. The locavore movement encourages consumers to buy from farmers?markets or even to produce their own food, with the argument that fresh, local products are more nutritious and taste better.
抛抛族 (pao1 pao1 zu2)
public litters
Some spectators at concerts or sports games have adopted the annoying and disruptive habit of littering, extending to even throwing things on stage and court. This behavior tarnishes the image of their city.
Sep. 27
Date:2008-09-27
钟摆族 (zhong1 bai3 zu2)
pendulum clan
This term refers to those young white-collar workers who travel a long distance between their offices and homes in the Yangtze River Delta area. It usually takes at least two hours to go from one place to another by train, bus or car.
奶油妈妈 (nai3 yo2u ma1 ma1)
milky mom
The term refers to mothers who, after the prescribed four-month maternity leave, have to go back to work but keep feeding their babies with their own milk. So, they have to find time and proper places to collect their milk during work hours and then bring the milk home after work. Since thousands of babies have recently fallen sick after taking some tainted milk powder products, the “milky mom” has become a healthy trend.
肾结石宝宝 (shen3 jie2 shi2 bao3 bao3)
kidney stone baby
It was recently brought to light that thousands of infants in China developed kidney stone diseases after taking melamine-tainted milk formula. Melamine, which may lead to reproductive damage, or bladder or kidney stones if ingested, has been found in a few milk powder products prepared for infants.
抠抠族 (kou1 kou1 zu2)
eke-out clan
Some young office workers in large cities like Shanghai who have a meager income have to think of varied ways to save money to pay their mortgages or to cover their wedding costs.
闪离 (shan3 li2)
speed divorce
While some people, especially those born in the 1980s, don’t hesitate to wait a while before getting married, others don’t have a second thought about getting a divorce once marriage crisis arises.
贴秋膘 (tie1 qiu1 biao1)
flesh out in autumn
Traditionally, autumn is a harvest season and thought of as a season of plenty. Also, the cool temperature brings back the appetite of many people who lost weight in the long, sweltering and often sleep-depriving summer. Therefore, autumn is also a good season for people to recover and store up much needed energy.
大小非减持 (d4 xiao3 fei1 jian3 chi2)
sale of non-tradable shares
China has been actively, and cautiously, encouraging the reform of the system of non-tradable shares in listed companies, as such stocks pose potential damage to the healthy growth of the country’s securities markets.
直升机父母（zhi1 sheng1 ji1 fu4 mu3）
helicopter parents
The term refers to parents who are always obsessively worried about their children’s future and safety and prefer to do everything for them. They are hovering over their children like helicopters, watchful and noisy.
September 21
Date:2008-09-20
现代病 (xian4 dai4 bing4)
modern disease
It refers to diseases and physical disorders believed, or proven, to have been caused by modern lifestyle, like staying in air-conditioned space or using computers too long.
太空人 (tai4 kong1 ren2)
frequent jet traveler
Some people like businessmen or popular showbiz artists who have to, or like to, fly around the world frequently.
语言暴力 (yu3 yan2 bao4 li4)
verbal violence
Among all types of violence, verbal violence is the most common. Now the term is used to mean slogans, remarks and language used in online discussions that are full of violent and abusive words or expletives.
收声 (shou1 sheng1)
shut up
The Chinese expression, once often used in formal context, is now frequently used at online platforms and media publications to mean stop talking or discussing.
街拍 (jie1 pai1)
street snapshot
Many shutterbugs these days upload the pictures they have taken on the street onto the Internet to share with others.
人球 (ren2 qiu2)
helpless castaway
The term, literally meaning “human ball”, refers to poor people for whom no one is willing to provide help. They are kicked around by people just like a tattered football. The term “little human ball” describes those kids whose parents have divorced and neither is willing to look after them.
睡眠博客 (shui4 mian2 bo2 ke4)
dormant blog
The term refers to those blogs that are rarely updated by their writers. Statistics show that on average, over 70 percent of blogs are not updated each month.
迷卡 (mi2 ka3)
mini card
It refers to portable digital input cards with handwriting functions, usually in the size of a name card. It proves to be a welcome alternative to keying text into phones or other electronic devices.
Sep. 14
Date:2008-09-13
紫领 (zi3 ling3)
purple-collar
The people in this group have the brains of the white-collar and the skills of the blue-collar. They are practical, progressive and have unrivaled personal presence that earns them far more income than white-collars and golden-collars combined.
格子店 (ge2 zi1 dian4)
pigeonhole shop
A kind of store where cabinet boxes are rented out to different people to sell various types of goods. It has become popular among young people, especially white-collars as they don’t have to stay in the store themselves.
吸金 (xi1 jin1)
money spinning, money making
This term translates literally “sucking gold.” It actually refers to any enterprise, project or person that rakes in a lot of money.
陪读 (pei2 du2)
student guardian/companion
In early times, this term referred to a youngster who was assigned to be a study mate for the offspring of a rich family. Nowadays, it is used to describe anyone who accompanies a child or spouse during his/her study overseas.
自然醒 (zi4 ran2 xing3)
wake-up naturally
How urban employees wish to wake up with their bio-clock, not the alarm clock! But under the pressure of fast-paced city life, having a sound sleep and waking up naturally has become a luxury for many urban workers.
姐弟恋 (jie3 di4 lian4)
cradle snatcher
"sister-younger brother love,"as this term means literally, refers to a woman's romance with a much younger male partner. It is not only reflected in the couple's appearance, but also in their roles in this relationship.
低碳族 (di1 tan4 zu2)
low-CO2 clan
This refers to the group of conservationists and nature lovers who try to minimize carbon dioxide emissions in daily life, for example, switching off PCs when not using them, shunning goods with excessive packaging, and rejecting the use of plastic bags.
虚拟奴隶 (xu1 ni3 nu2 li4)
online slave
"Buy me as your slave" is now a greeting among some Chinese online users. Similar to "Friends for Sale"application in www.facebook.com, this application offered by www.kaixin001.com gives users a whole new experience compared with other run-of-the-mill social networking Websites. www.kaixin001.com is a new entrant to the Chinese SNS (social networking service). At "Friends for Sale"each user can be sold as a "slave"twice every day through the virtual payment system. The "Owners"can earn money by forcing the "Slaves"to work as singers, miners or toilet cleaners. or, they could just be "tortured"for fun.
Sep. 7
Date:2008-09-07
crazy shopper
Some shoppers buy whatever is available at a sale only for the cheap prices ?the extreme example of impulsive buying.
租奴 (zu1 nu2)
house-rent slave
Some people in big cities like Beijing and Shanghai, especially those young workers from other provinces, have to take out a big part of their salary to pay their rent.
博客圈 (bo2 ke4 quan1)
blogosphere
It refers to the communities or social networks that comprise all blogs and their interconnection.
头像 (tou2 xiang4)
avatar
This term refers to the model or icon used in the chatrooms, MSN, QQ and other online communities or games, to represent a user or participant. It’s usually a three-dimensional model in computer games or a two-dimensional icon in Internet forums.
穿衣经 (chuan1 yi1 jing1)
dressing manual
Many newspapers and magazines these days run a special column discussing the trendy, and mostly correct, ways of getting dressed.
百恼汇 (bai3 nao3 hui4)
middle-age crisis
The term has a similar pronunciation to “Buynow,” the name of a computer market, in Chinese. Meaning “a host of worries” it is now used to describe the lifestyle crisis facing many middle-aged people.
博斗 (bo2 dou4)
blog bickering
The term is a homonym of the Chinese word “fight,” but it conjoins two Chinese characters that can mean “blog” and “fight,” respectively. So, the phrase refers to Netizens tilting at each other on their blogs.
白托 (bai2 tuo1)
daytime care service
The term refers to a government project aiming to improve community care for senior citizens. The community center will serve the elderly lunches and dinners and organize some recreational activities for them during the day.
团子 (tuan2 zi)
panda
The Chinese term is one of the nicknames for panda and it literally means dumplings. People use this to describe the round-shaped, fatty pandas. Other popular nicknames include gun gun (滚滚), which means rolling in Chinese, also used to describe roly-poly pandas.
August 31
Date:2008-08-30
叉腰肌 (cha1 yao1 ji1)
tangential excuse
The term means literally iliopsoas — the great flexor muscle of the hip joint. It has become one of the hottest buzzwords in China after Xie Yalong, China’s senior soccer official, recently used it to criticize the women’s national soccer team, blaming their failure at the Olympic Games on their weak iliopsoas muscles. Most Netizens believe it’s an extremely tangential excuse cited by Xie to avoid the blame.
潜水 (qian3 shui3)
lurking
This popular expression in the online world refers to the fact that some visitors only read remarks posted by others in the chat room but never participate in the talk.
海泡 (hai3 pao4)
overseas-lingering grads
Some Chinese students stay much longer than necessary in a foreign country after finishing their study because they lack confidence to find a good job in their home country. The expression plays on the Chinese word 泡, which can mean either bubble, froth or, as a verb, to linger.
海鸥 (hai3 ou1)
globe-trotting businesspeople
Seagull, as this Chinese term means literally, describes some Chinese people who have an overseas education background and frequently take business trips to foreign countries. They are likened to seagulls flying over the sea all the time.
海根 (hai3 gen1)
back-to-the-root Chinese
Many Chinese become well established in a foreign country after finishing their study, but they are more than ready to return to China to spend the rest of their life. As the old Chinese saying goes, “falling leaves will return to the roots.”
金牌学历 (jin1 pai2 xue2 li4)
gold-medal education
This term doesn’t mean an education that is worthy of a “gold medal.” It refers to the free education offered by some universities to attract sport stars who have won gold medals.
云计算 (yun2 ji4 suan4)
cloud computing
It is a distributed computing technology, an improvement on Distributed Computing, Parallel Computing and Grid Computing as well as commercial realization of scientific computing concepts. Many famous IT companies such as IBM, Yahoo and Google promote services and products through this technology.
返券黄牛(fan3 quan4 huang2 niu2)
shopping coupon scalper
Some shopping malls give coupons to customers as discounts during promotions. If customers don’t want to use the coupons, scalpers profit by selling or buying them.
August 24
Date:2008-08-23
啤酒眼 (pi1jiu3yan3)
beer goggles
Through a drunken eye, things do look different. Under the influence of alcohol, people tend to choose sex partners they would never prefer while sober. No wonder people say “beauty is in the eye of the beer holder.”
诈弹 (zha4dan4)
false bomb
This Chinese term has the same pronunciation as the Chinese term for “bomb”, but with a twist: the first character “zha” here means “false,” not “explosive.”
油老虎 (you2lao3hu3)
gas guzzler
“Oil tiger,” as this term translates literally, refers to cars that get very poor gas mileage. Many Chinese nouveau riche favor “oil tigers” to show off their wealth.
火锅奖 (huo3guo1jiang3)
hotpot prize
Instead of a jackpot, this term refers to some lottery prizes with a very small value — so small that you can afford only a hotpot meal with each of the prizes.
住车族 (zhu4che1zu2)
car living people
It refers to some people in California who live in their cars as they have lost jobs and cannot afford rent for housing.
职客 (zhi2ke4)
job-hunting agent
A term used to refer to those who help others find a job and then charge a certain amount as a fee. This kind of self-employed agent sees a job-wanted post on the Internet and helps find one as specified by using their connections as well as job market information.
嚼吧 (jue2ba1)
chewing gum club
It is reported that in some big Chinese cities like Beijing and Guangzhou, a chewing gum producer has set up a room and offers free products to office workers complaining of high pressure, either from work or life, in high-end office complexes.
潜歧视 (qian4qi2shi4)
tacit discrimination
It is a deep-rooted habitual discrimination harbored by one group of people against another though it has never been publicly stated.
August 17
Date:2008-08-17
奥运婚（ao4yun4hun1）
Olympic marriage
The 2008 Beijing Olympic Games are not just a party for sports fans but also for many brides and grooms. The number of wedding registrations in Shanghai hit a record on August 8, the opening day of the Games, as many young couples wanted the memorable day as their wedding anniversary.
懒婚族(lan3hun1zu2)
single-life clan
It refers to those who have a decent and well-paying job and live a comfortable life but are reluctant to get married.
味道美女(wei4dao4mei3nu3)
belle waitress
The Chinese term literally means "delectable beauty." And many gourmets believe that beautiful waitresses are the sine qua non of a fine feast.
绿游(lu4you2)
green tour
A term used these days to classify those people who prefer a tour operator and a hotel that provide environment protection information, refuse to eat or buy anything made of protected species and refrain from littering and using detergents.
代排族(dai4pai2zu2)
hired queuer
People, usually migrants from rural areas and jobless citizens, are hired to queue up for train tickets and hospital appointment tickets in large cities in return for a pittance.
男人妆(nan2ren2zhuang1)
unisex makeup
Some women make themselves up in a way that is unisex instead of purely feminine.
拍砖(pai1zhua1)
knock, pick apart
The term, which literally means "smacking with a brick" in Chinese, is now widely used among Chinese Internet users when they strongly criticize someone's idea or act.
控盐勺(kong4yan2shao2)
salt-control spoon
Shanghai government has decided to give out 6 million salt-control spoons free to local families in order to help control local residents' daily salt intake. Scientists have found that locals are putting too much salt into their food. Surveys found an average resident in Shanghai takes in about 9.90 grams of salt every day, far above the recommended amount of 6 grams.
