Sinica: Chinese Phrase of the Week

“Pilfered in passing” — Phrase of the Week

Andrew Methven — Sun, 26 Jul 2026 10:01:31 GMT

Artwork by Zhang Zhigang for RealTime Mandarin

Our phrase of the week is: “pilfered in passing” (顺手牵羊 shùn shǒu qiān yáng)

Context

One of the biggest stories being discussed in the Chinese media this week is a high profile plagiarism case involving the academic and writer, Jiang Fangzhou (蒋方舟).

Jiang is known as the “genius girl” (天才少女). She published her first book at the age of nine, and by the age of 12 was writing columns for Southern Metropolis Daily (南方都市报).

She was admitted to Tsinghua University in 2008 for her under graduate degree with a 60-point concession on her gaokao score. After a stint as deputy editor of Neweekly (新周刊), a respected current affairs magazine, Jiang went on to take a master’s degree in creative writing at Renmin University which she completed in 2019.

Since then she’s become one of the more recognisable literary personalities in China, especially among people born in the 1990s and 2000s.

But this has all come crashing down this month following accusations of plagiarism which resulted in her master’s being revoked by Renmin University.

The accusations were first raised by a retired Tsinghua University professor in August last year, who made a formal complaint to Remin University in April this year which triggered an investigation.

More recently, two “online sleuths” identified passages in her master’s thesis, and one of her books, which they alleged had been lifted directly from publications outside of China, asking the question:

“This makes me wonder:
how much of it did she write herself, and did she casually lift it from somewhere else?”
这让我不禁怀疑，多少东西是她自己写的，多少东西是顺手牵羊的。

And with that, we have our Sinica Phrase of the Week.

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What it means

“Casually lift from somewhere else” is our translation of the classical Chinese idiom which literally means to “leading the goat away in passing” (顺手牵羊 shùn shǒu qiān yáng). Although in the end we landed on a different translation which I’ll come to at the end.

But first, the long and winding history of this old idiom.

The earliest reference of the image of “leading a goat” is believed to be in The Book of Rites (礼记), the Confucian classic on ritual and etiquette compiled during the Han Dynasty (206 BCE-220 CE). The text instructs that when presenting a horse or a goat as a gift, it should be led in a certain way:

“When presenting a horse or a goat, lead it with the right hand.”
效马效羊者右牵之。

The first recorded use of the idiom in its modern form comes over a millennia later, in Single Whip Seizes the Lance (单鞭夺槊), a play by Shang Zhongxian (尚仲贤) who was a playwright of the Yuan Dynasty (1271-1368).

In one scene, a warrior boasts of capturing an enemy rider:

“I gripped his horse with my right hand, seized his eyelashes with my left, and led him back as easily as leading away a goat.”
是我把右手带住马，左手揪着他眼扎毛，顺手牵羊一般牵他回来了。

A century later, “as easily as leading away a goat” was immortalised in the Thirty-Six Stratagems (三十六计), a famous collection of military tactics, likely compiled in the late Ming Dynasty (1368-1644), althgough the writer is unknown.

“As easily as leading a goat” (顺手牵羊) is the twelfth stratagem. It teaches that when a large army is on the move it will inevitably expose weaknesses. A clever opponent takes advantage of every one of them, no matter how small, accumulating minor gains into major ones.

The idiom’s meaning has evolved over the centuries. Now in modern Chinese it describes casually or opportunistically pocketing something that doesn’t belong to you. It always carries a negative tone, which is exactly how it was used to describe Jiang Fangzhou’s writing.

According to the allegations against her, the work of other writers was conveniently within her reach, and helpfully written outside China making it harder to track.

So, according to her accusers, she casually lifted, translated, adjusted and dropped them into her own work. Which is why we landed on “pilfered in passing” for the translation of this ancient and storied idiom.

Andrew Methven is the author of RealTime Mandarin, a resource which helps you bridge the gap to real-world fluency in Mandarin, stay informed about China, and communicate with confidence—all through weekly immersion in real news. Subscribe for free here.

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“The Odyssey Years” — Phrase of the Week

Andrew Methven — Sun, 19 Jul 2026 12:43:20 GMT

Artwork by Zhang Zhigang for RealTime Mandarin

Our phrase of the week is: “Odyssey Years” (奥德赛时期 ào dé sài shí qī)

Context

According to a recent survey, around half of recent graduates in China say they lack a clear sense of purpose or direction after university. With millions of people competing for a shrinking pool of opportunities, the pressure on them is relentless.

So, many graduates in China are opting to drift instead of following the usual script of entering the world of work and getting married.

In this column we’ve explored phrases which define this experience. From “involuted competition” (内卷) to taking on an underpaid “work horse” (牛马) job, and eventually giving up and “lying flat” (躺平).

This experience of rejecting the usual path and choosing to drift now has a name. It’s a phrase which has been circulating on the Chinese internet since February this year, and is explored in a recent article by current affairs magazine Sanlian Lifeweek (三联生活周刊).

The article opens with a familiar genre of street interview shared on social media, in which passers-by are asked why they’re out on the streets during working hours.

The answer to that question often contains our Phrase of the Week:

‘I’m going through my Odyssey Years.’”
“我在经历我的奥德赛时期。”

And with that, we have our Sinica Phrase of the Week.

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What it means

“Odyssey Years” (奥德赛时期 àodésài shíqī) is a phrase borrowed from English. Breaking it down: “Odyssey” (奥德赛), a phonetic transliteration of Homer’s Greek epic, The Odyssey, and the word for “period of time” or “years” (时期).

The phrase was first coined back in 2007 by New York Times columnist David Brooks.

Brooks argued that life once had four stages: childhood, adolescence, adulthood, and old age. He suggested there are now at least six stages. Including a new phase between adolescence and adulthood which he called “the Odyssey Years”.

This is a reference to how, after the Trojan War, Odysseus spent ten years enduring endless hardships before finally returning home to his wife and son.

Nearly two decades after Brooks coined it, the phrase has found a second life in China. It first began resonating in February this year through posts shared on lifestyle platform Red Note (小红书), and then started to go viral across the Chinese internet in April.

“The Odyssey Years” is how young people in China describe the drifting years in their twenties: switching constantly between jobs, cities, and studies, delaying marriage and children, and often still relying on parents for financial support.

It sits alongside related buzzwords describing the same generation, like “slow employment” (慢就业) and “gap year” (间隔年).

Part of why the phrase caught on is that it gives a name to this lack of direction. It reflects a growing rejection of the “social clock” (社会时钟), the expectation that life should happen on schedule, and echoes another popular saying among young Chinese:

“Life is a wilderness of possibilities, not a path set in stone.”
人生是旷野而非轨道。

Another phrase which has appeared alongside the Odyssey Years in these conversations in China is “emerging adulthood” (成人初显期), which is another imported term coined by American psychologist Jeffrey Arnett in 2000 to describe the same in-between stage of life.

But it’s the Homer reference, though, that has captured imaginations in China.

Invoking Odysseus makes the drifting feel less depressing, and offers hope that eventually a destination will be reached. But unlike Odysseus, China’s young people today might have no Ithaca waiting for them. So this new label is a way of romanticising that decade of confusion, tinged with resignation and a little bitterness.

The phrase’s popularity in China came well before and is unrelated to Christopher Nolan’s interpretation of the epic, starring Matt Damon as Odysseus, which opens in mainland China on August 14.

But with the hype around the movie already building, the phrase is likely to get a boost in the coming weeks, and could be an early contender for our Phrase of the Year in 2026.

What do you think: Will the “Odyssey Years” take hold and be in our top ten phrases of 2026?

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"Mass appeal" — Phrase of the Week

Andrew Methven — Sun, 12 Jul 2026 13:27:38 GMT

Artwork by Zhang Zhigang for RealTime Mandarin

Our phrase of the week is: “mass appeal” (路人缘 lù rén yuán)

Context

On July 2, a court in Suzhou ruled that Molly Tea (茉莉奶白), one of China’s rising bubble tea brands, had infringed seven registered trademarks belonging to Louis Vuitton. The Shenzhen-based tea company’s logo, a black-and-white four-petal flower, closely resembles LV’s iconic monogram flower.

The court ordered Molly Tea to pay 10 million yuan ($1.4 million) in damages plus 300,000 yuan in legal costs, apologise publicly to LV, and remove all infringing designs.

Shortly after the court decision was announced, the story began trending on social media. People expressed sympathy for the tea brand, shared images of their Molly Tea receipts in support, and noted the unfairness of a fight between a 20,000-yuan handbag and an 18-yuan cup of tea.

Some even suggested that LV’s celebrated monogram is itself borrowed from Chinese culture, pointing to the “treasure flower” pattern (宝相花), a stylised floral motif found in Buddhist art from the Tang Dynasty (618-907).

So although LV won in the courtroom, its victory in the court of public opinion is less clear:

“It wasn’t a total win for LV.
They got the money, but some say it cost them their mass appeal.”
LV这边似乎并没有全然胜利——拿到了钱，却被一些声音形容为”丢了路人缘”。

And with that, we have our Sinica Phrase of the Week.

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What it means

“Mass appeal” (路人缘 lù rén yuán) is an internet slang term which comes from fan culture. The characters translate as: “passer-by” (路人 lùrén), “affinity” (缘 yuán).

In Chinese, a “passer-by” (路人) is a stranger, or a neutral onlooker. In fan circles, it specifically means people outside the fans of a particular celebrity: they are not fans, not haters, just the general public.

The second part, “affinity” (缘), is the same character used in “fateful connection” (缘分), the bond that draws people together. So “passer-by affinity” is the appeal a celebrity enjoys among people who aren’t their core fans.

The phrase emerged in the early days of the Chinese internet as “fan-circle slang” (饭圈流行语). It describes stars who are liked even by people with no interest in celebrity culture.

Over time, the phrase became a measure of a star’s mainstream popularity. And it’s now evolved beyond celebrities and can apply to brands and companies too.

Which brings us back to LV. In its legal battle with Molly Tea, the luxury brand won in legal terms. But whether it can win back its “mass appeal” is another matter.

"Gaming the system" — Phrase of the Week

Andrew Methven — Sun, 05 Jul 2026 09:55:06 GMT

Artwork by Zhang Zhigang for RealTime Mandarin

Our phrase of the week is: “gaming the system ” (卡bug kǎ bug)

Context

As June temperatures have soared past 40°C in Germany, France, the UK and beyond, Europeans are rushing to buy air conditioners.

Only around 20% of European households are air conditioned. Older properties were built for cooler weather, and strict heritage rules limit changes to their exteriors, such as fitting external air conditioning units. So installing one is often either prohibited altogether, or prohibitively expensive.

Yet orders have surged at big Asian manufacturers including Midea (美的), a Chinese white-goods maker headquartered in Foshan in Guangdong.

Midea has designed a product specifically for the European market. It’s called the PortaSplit, which is a portable “split-unit” air conditioner with one part which clips onto the outside windowsill, and a cooling unit which sits on the floor inside.

The PortaSplit’s popularity is because it fits just within strict and varied building rules across different European countries. Its outdoor unit clips onto a windowsill with a simple bracket which means no tools or drilling are required and it counts as an internal appliance on a shelf. Its refrigerant capacity is 1.99kg, just under the French 2kg threshold. In silent mode it runs at 35 decibels, right on the German limit. And its efficiency rating of 6.1 lands just inside the bottom end of Switzerland’s A++ band.

This ingenious design has caught attention in China, and is described with this confusing internet slang phrase:

This is product design at its finest, which has been jokingly called “gaming the system”.
Midea’s global, legal and design teams all deserve a hefty year-end bonus.
这种极致的产品定义被戏称为”卡bug”，美的的外贸、法务和设计团队都该集体加年终奖。

And with that, we have our Sinica Phrase of the Week.

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What it means

“Gaming the system” is our translation of this slang phrase which starts with the Chinese verb “to jam” or “get stuck” (卡 kǎ) followed by the English word “bug”.

“Bug” is used here in the context of computing. The source of that word dates back to the late 1940s, when Grace Hopper, a computer scientist working on the Mark II machine at Harvard, traced a fault to a moth trapped inside one of its relays. She taped the moth into her logbook and recorded it as the first real “bug” found in a computer. The word stuck, and “bug” became the standard term for a fault or flaw in a computer, program, or application.

The Chinese phrase “jamming the bug” (卡bug) comes from the early days of first-person shooter (FPS) games, which spread through Chinese internet cafés from the early 2000s. These games inevitably had flaws in their map design, and players learned to exploit those faults to their advantage like breaking through a wall, or reaching a spot where no opponent could hit them.

This could be done through certain moves like repeatedly nudging a particular prop in the game, switching weapons, or hitting keys in a certain rhythm to freeze the character in mid-air. This kind of manoeuvre became known as “jamming a bug” (卡bug).

Within gaming, the phrase broadened to cover any trick that exploits a loophole in a game’s settings such as grabbing high-value equipment, skipping past a task, or winning an unfair advantage over other players.

At some point in the last 10 years or so the phrase moved beyond gaming into mainstream use. It’s now used for anything that “games the system” or rules without technically breaking them by finding gaps in a system and slipping through.

Which is why this phrase is the ideal descriptor for Midea’s PortaSplit. The air conditioner doesn’t break any European regulations. Instead it sits deliberately right on the edge of all of them, creating a hugely popular product which has come at the right time for many people overheating in their homes.

"The Card Master" — Phrase of the Week

Andrew Methven — Sun, 28 Jun 2026 10:31:08 GMT

Artwork by Zhang Zhigang for RealTime Mandarin

Our phrase of the week is: “The Card Master” (卡牌大师 kǎ pái dà shī)

Context

At the 2026 World Cup, which kicked off on June 11, China's national team is absent again. In fact, Team China hasn't qualified for the tournament since 2002.

There is, however, one Chinese representative on the pitch: head referee Ma Ning (马宁). His first match was Ecuador versus Curaçao on June 20, which drew over 10 million Chinese viewers on social media platform RED.

Born in 1979, Ma Ning started his career as a university PE teacher in Wuxi. He began refereeing as a hobby in his spare time. At age 26, he came top of the Chinese Football Association’s national referee programme, then worked his way up from the lower leagues to the Chinese Super League, making international referee in 2011.

He made the officials’ list for Qatar 2022 but only as fourth official and VAR assistant, never taking charge of a match. That looked like his last chance, yet he trained four more years and, against the odds, made the refereeing squad for this World Cup at 47.

Ma Ning is a hit with fans in China. But not just because he is China’s “only starter” (唯一首发) on the pitch at the World Cup. It’s his unforgiving, principled style which has won fans over and given rise to his nickname:

Within the profession, he’s known as “The Card Master.”
It’s not a jab, but a respectful acknowledgement.
His approach on the pitch is simple to the point of stubbornness: he follows the rules, not a player’s reputation.
业内人送他外号“卡牌大师”。这不是调侃，是带着敬畏的认可。他的赛场逻辑简单到近乎固执：只认规则，不认脸。

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What it means

"Card Master" (卡牌大师 kǎ pái dà shī) is an internet slang phrase which came from online gaming and is now the nickname given to Ma Ning.

It’s origin is League of Legends (英雄联盟), the hugely popular online battle game, and the source of many other well-known internet slang phrases. The “Card Master” (卡牌大师) is a characters in the game. He’s a champion who fights by hurling playing cards, and is known in English as Twisted Fate.

The Card Master is a notorious yet charming gambler and con man. He is world-famous for his skill with a deck of cards and always keeps an ace up his sleeve. Everything he does revolves around cards: he flings them at enemies, draws blue, red or gold cards for different effects, and has a signature move that reveals every opponent on the map.

The nickname crossed over into football, and onto Ma Ning himself, after a notorious Shanghai derby in May 2015, between Shanghai SIPG (上海上港) and Shanghai Shenhua (上海申花). During that match he handed out 12 cards in total: nine yellow and three red. His liberal use of cards drew the comparison to the Card Master in League of Legends, and the name stuck.

Ma Ning has since become a superstar in China, and his nickname “Card Master” has followed him as an admiring nod to his adherence to the rules, and his willingness to punish any player who breaks them, no matter how big the name.

With China’s national team watching from home, Chinese football fans have turned to the Card Master for someone to support at the World Cup, calling him the most neutral official at the tournament.

"The Great Duck-Leg Scam War" — Phrase of the Week

Andrew Methven — Sun, 21 Jun 2026 10:30:41 GMT

Artwork by Zhang Zhigang for RealTime Mandarin

Our phrase of the week is: “The Great Duck-Leg Scam War” (鸭骗战争 yā piàn zhàn zhēng)

Context

For more than a decade, a roadside vendor known to students across Beijing as “Goose-Leg Auntie” (鹅腿阿姨) sold roast goose legs from a tricycle cart outside the city’s most prestigious universities: Tsinghua, Peking, and Renmin Universities.

She had no shopfront and no delivery service, just a charcoal grill, and a three-wheeler.

Her real name is Chen Xiufeng (陈秀凤). She came to Beijing from Jiangsu in 2,000, first selling fruit at the southwest gate of Peking University. Around 2011 she switched to grilling goose legs. By late 2023 “Goose-Leg Auntie” was a campus legend. Students in the three universities competed to lure her to their campuses.

But earlier this month that all came crashing down.

It was triggered when Chen shared in a customer group chat an announcement admitting she had been using duck legs, not goose legs, for fifteen years. She added that she had been reported to the authorities by a customer and was now cooperating with an investigation.

Her post was shared on social media and went viral.

Beyond the shock and anger of many customers at being deceived for years, there was also humorous mockery of elite students who were made fools of and unable to discern the difference between duck and goose legs.

One viral post framed the saga in the language of a great historical conflict:

“The hashtag #GooseLegAuntieScandal# briefly shot to the top of the trending searches.
Turning the saga into what can only be described as “The Great Duck-Scam War” fought on the campuses of Peking and Tsinghua Universities.”
#鹅腿阿姨塌房#一度干到热搜第一，这就是一场属于清北的“鸭骗战争”。

And with that, we have our Sinica Phrase of the Week.

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What it means

“The Great Duck-Leg Scam War” (鸭骗战争 yā piàn zhànzhēng) is a newly invented internet slang phrase, coined in the days after Goose-Leg Auntie’s downfall. The characters are “duck” (鸭), “to deceive or scam” (骗) and “war” (战争).

The pronunciation and tones of the characters in “duck-scam war” (鸭骗战争) are exactly the same as the “Opium War” (鸦片战争 yāpiàn zhànzhēng), the mid-nineteenth-century conflicts between Qing China and Britain that opened the country to the foreign opium trade and are remembered in China as the start of its “century of humiliation”.

There were two Opium Wars, so students dubbed the Goose-Leg Auntie affair as the “Third Duck-Leg Scam War” (第三次鸭骗战争), casting themselves as the latest generation to be humbled and humiliated by a superior invading force.

The phrase joins a long list of animal-based Chinese expressions for deception. Such as our 2023 Phrase of the Year, “calling a rat a duck” (指鼠为鸭), which is a riff on the ancient idiom “calling a deer a horse” (指鹿为马) meaning to deliberately misrepresent something as its opposite.

The humour of this new phrase pokes fun at the victims of the scam. They are the country’s brightest students, elites who are selected through a punishing exam system. They supported and happily bought from Goose Leg Auntie for years and never once noticed they were eating duck, not goose.

So a case of mislabelled meat has become a grand reckoning, with the students on the losing side. Which is why we translate this phrase as The Great Duck-Leg Scam War.

"Shooting yourself in the foot" — Phrase of the Week

Andrew Methven — Sun, 14 Jun 2026 12:28:31 GMT

Artwork by Zhang Zhigang for RealTime Mandarin

Our phrase of the week is: “shooting yourself in the foot” (搬起石头砸自己的脚 bān qǐ shí tou zá zì jǐ de jiǎo)

Context

Zhang Xiaolong (张小龙) is the CEO of the listed company Fenbi Technology (粉笔科技). Fenbi is one of China’s biggest online education platforms, specialising in civil service exam (考公) preparation. Millions of students in China pay for Fenbi’s services to get them through that gruelling exam.

Recently, Zhang Xiaolong was invited to give a lecture at the School of Philosophy at Renmin University (人大), the top university in China for training hopeful civil servants. The hundred or so students were in the room were exactly the kind of people who go on to sit that civil service exam, and potentially become Fenbi customers.

Zhang’s talk was meant to cover exam prep and job-hunting. But at the last minute, Zhang changed his topic to “Career Planning in the AI Era” (AI时代的职业规划).

And in under an hour, he managed to insult the students, tell them they had no hope of passing the civil service exam, brag about how rich he was, and how much money he’d recently made trading US tech stocks using AI.

Throughout his speech the room stayed quiet, and some students left early.

Rather than take this in his stride, Zhang began to rant angrily and uncontrollably at the audience. He refused to take questions, told them they were hopeless, and walked out.

The news of Zhang’s outburst spread fast on social media. Many of Fenbi’s own students started demanding refunds, and the company’s share price tumbled. Zhang issued one apology, and another.

But the damage was done:

“He built his name on civil service exam prep and makes his money from civil service exam candidates, yet he disparages those very candidates so openly.
Zhang Xiaolong shooting himself in the foot like this is both deeply baffling and purely farcical.”
靠考公起家，赚考公人的钱，却如此露骨地贬低考公人——张小龙这种搬起石头砸自己的脚的行为，十分令人费解，也十分黑色幽默。

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What it means

“To shoot yourself in the foot”, or, literally “to lift a rock only to drop it on your own foot” (搬起石头砸自己的脚 bān qǐ shí tou zá zì jǐ de jiǎo), is a colloquial Chinese saying.

It does not have a single ancient origin, unlike so many other Phrases of the Week. Dictionaries record it in two forms: the longer colloquial version above, and a tighter four-character idiom, “lift rock, smash foot” (搬石砸脚).

The four-character form is usually traced to a 1973 martial-arts novel by the Taiwanese writer Wolong Sheng (卧龙生). The longer version is most often sourced to Below the Wuling Mountains (武陵山下), a novel about the Communist campaign to wipe out bandits after 1949, by the military writer Zhang Xing (张行).

Its most famous use, though, is by Mao Zedong (毛泽东). He used the phrase to describe what he saw as then British Prime Minister Neville Chamberlain’s policy of appeasing the fascist powers. The remark, from a 1939 interview with the Xinhua Daily (新华日报), was later collected in his Selected Works:

“To lift a rock only to drop it on one’s own foot — that is the inevitable result of Chamberlain’s policy.”
搬起石头打自己的脚，这就是张伯伦政策的必然结果。

Mao was borrowing an existing folk saying, not coining it. And he used “to hit” (打) where the common phrase today uses “to smash” (砸).

Today the phrase is common in political and economic commentary, and in business too. The nearest English equivalent is “to shoot yourself in the foot”, which is how we translate it here.

China’s Ministry of Commerce used it in May 2025, after Washington warned that using Huawei’s Ascend (昇腾) AI chips anywhere in the world would breach US export rules. The ministry said the restrictions would ultimately backfire:

“The result can only be to shoot oneself in the foot.”
其结果只能是搬起石头砸自己的脚。

And that is precisely what Zhang Xiaolong did in his speech last week.

He has built his fortune on the fees of civil service exam candidates, then stood in front of a room of those students, and told them they were worthless. So now his customers are demanding refunds, his share price is tanking, and his reputation is in pieces.

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"A crushing blow" — Phrase of the Week

Andrew Methven — Sun, 07 Jun 2026 14:34:47 GMT

Artwork by Zhang Zhigang for RealTime Mandarin

Our phrase of the week is: “a crushing blow” (当头一棒 dāng tóu yí bàng)

Context

On May 22, the China Securities Regulatory Commission launched investigations into three of the country’s largest internet brokerages — Futu (富途), Tiger Trade (老虎) and Longbridge (长桥).

All three were also hit with fines totalling 2.3 billion yuan (around $320 million dollars).

These online brokerages allow mainland Chinese retail investors to trade overseas stocks, including Hong Kong and US-listed shares, directly and easily via an app. This is something that is otherwise tightly restricted inside China, with the likes of Futu operating in what is often described as a “grey area” (灰色地带).

On the same day as the CSRC announcement, Hong Kong introduced the toughest cross-border account-opening rules in its history, making it much harder for mainlanders to open bank accounts in the jurisdiction.

This pressure on brokerages is also concerning the millions of Chinese who have invested their hard-earned cash into them, as one commentator put it:

This regulatory storm also dealt a crushing blow to the mainland retail investors.
这次监管风暴，对内地散户也是当头一棒。

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What it means

“A crushing blow” (当头一棒 dāng tóu yí bàng) is a classical Chinese idiom. The individual characters mean: “right at” (当), “head” (头), “one” (一), “club” (棒) — literally, a club brought down straight on the head.

The phrase comes from the Compendium of the Five Lamps (五灯会元), a major collection of Chan — or Zen (禅宗) — Buddhist lineage records compiled around 1252 by the Song-dynasty monk Puji, (释普济).

The work gathers the biographies and sayings of generations of Chan masters, and is one of the defining records of the tradition.

The idiom appears in the section on Linji Yixuan (临济义玄), the Tang-dynasty master who died in 866. He gave his name to the Linji school of Chan Buddhism, which is the lineage that became Rinzai Zen in Japan.

Linji was known for a deliberately jarring teaching style, designed to jolt students out of intellectual hair-splitting and into a sudden awakening.

In the passage, a monk puts a lofty question to him:

A monk asked, “What is the great meaning of the Buddha’s teaching?”
The master raised his fly-whisk; the monk gave a shout; the master shouted back.
As the monk hesitated, the master struck him.
上堂，僧问：”如何是佛法大意？”
师亦竖拂子，僧便喝，师亦喝。僧拟议，师便打。

In Chan practice, a sudden shout or a blow from the master’s whisk, which is known together as “stick and shout” (棒喝 bàng hè), was meant to short-circuit rational thought and shock a student into thinking differently.

This story eventually became the four-character idiom, “a crushing blow” (当头一棒), which everyone in China with a high school education will know about.

Over the centuries the phrase moved out of the monastery and into everyday language. It appears, for instance, in the Qing-dynasty (1644–1912) novel Flowers in the Mirror (镜花缘) by Li Ruzhen (李汝珍):

Although the joke is only told in jest, to those who are ignorant and self-opinionated, it serves as a crushing blow that might just jolt them awake.
这个笑话虽是斗趣，若教愚而好自用的听了，却是当头一棒，真可猛然唤醒。

It recurs through later writers too, including Lu Xun (鲁迅), modern China’s most influential author.

In contemporary Chinese, “a crushing blow” carries two linked senses. It can mean a sudden, unexpected blow that comes out of nowhere. And, keeping to its Buddhist roots, it can also mean a sharp warning that forces someone to wake up to reality.

For the 5 million mainland investors who poured their money into offshore brokerages, China’s crackdown on those companies is both at once: a sudden financial shock, and a hard lesson in how fast the rules can change.

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"Social currency" — Phrase of the Week

Andrew Methven — Sun, 31 May 2026 19:59:19 GMT

Artwork by Zhang Zhigang for RealTime Mandarin

Our phrase of the week is: “social currency” (社交货币 shè jiāo huò bì)

Context

A new sports craze is taking hold in China.

It’s called Hyrox. There’s no Chinese translation for it — it’s just known by its English name.

Hyrox is a “hybrid fitness race” (混合健身竞速赛) founded in Germany in 2017 by Christian Toetzke. It has exploded across China’s first-tier cities over the past year.

Hyrox is described as the “Olympics for the middle classes” (中产奥运) in China. The majority of participants are in the 30-to-39 age bracket, mostly urban professionals, who are also among the most active people on social media.

For them, every Hyrox event has two arenas: the physical venue, and the social media feed.

Because the real appeal is the status symbol joining a Hyrox race brings:

“Snapshots from training and race day have naturally become a new form of social currency.
China’s middle class has largely moved on from flexing luxury logos and fancy meals — now they show off the winding GPS run trackers on their fitness apps and their finishing moments at Hyrox.”
一张张备赛、参赛的照片，也能水到渠成地成为社交货币。如今，中产们早就放弃为奢侈品Logo和一顿漂亮饭拍照，转而开始展示运动App里蜿蜒的跑步轨迹和Hyrox的完赛瞬间。

And with that, we have our Sinica Phrase of the Week.

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What it means

“Social currency” is a four-character phrase which translates directly as “social” (社交 shè jiāo), “currency” (货币 huò bì).

This is one of those phrases which started life in English but has become far more widespread in Chinese than in its language of origin.

The concept builds on the work of French sociologist Pierre Bourdieu, who in the 1980s developed the idea of “social capital” (社会资本) — the non-financial resources people accumulate through their networks and identity.

The specific term “social currency” was coined in 2009 by Erich Joachimsthaler, founder of New York consulting firm Vivaldi Partners, who adapted Bourdieu’s framework for the digital marketing age.

The phrase became widely known in the English speaking world after Wharton School professor, Jonah Berger, made it the first of six principles in his 2013 bestseller Contagious: Why Things Catch On. Berger defined it as how people “use social currency to win the admiration of family, friends, and colleagues”.

The Chinese translation of Contagious (疯传) was published in January 2014, which rendered “social currency” in Chinese as “社交货币”.

The phrase spread through Chinese marketing circles over the following years, becoming established vocabulary by 2018, when it was being used to analyse the rise of brands like Xiaomi (小米), which used social media to build brand and engagement with their fans and customers.

By 2019 to 2021, “social currency” had crossed over into mainstream usage. With the rise of the “aesthetics economy” (颜值经济), brands like premium ice cream maker Chicecream (钟薛高) — designed to be photographed and shared on social media — turned “social currency” into a standard way of describing why young Chinese consumers buy what they buy.

The term “social currency” fits the new Hyrox trend perfectly. For many of China’s urban middle class who take part, the race itself is only half the appeal. The training photos, the finishing-line moments, and the matching PUMA shoes, are just as important. These are the social currency they gain from taking part.

The organisers of Hyrox has done an incredible job of seizing the commercial opportunity. Photographers are stationed throughout the course. And after the race participants can buy the full set of their photos for 214 yuan ($31).

So social currency, it turns out, can also be turned into hard currency by smart brands.

"Brave the elements" — Phrase of the Week

Andrew Methven — Sun, 24 May 2026 10:31:13 GMT

Artwork by Zhang Zhigang for RealTime Mandarin

Our phrase of the week is: “brave the elements” (风里来雨里去 fēng lǐ lái yǔ lǐ qù)

Context

A new documentary about delivery riders in China has struck a nerve.

The Life of China’s Food Delivery Riders in 2026 (2026中国外卖员生存报告) was produced by LifeLab (三联生活实验室), which is a lifestyle magazine published by LifeWeek.

The documentary was released in mid-April and follows riders across three Beijing neighbourhoods: the migrant village of Yuxinzhuang (于辛庄村) a northern suburb near the Sixth Ring Road, the central business district, and Wanliu (万柳), one of the capital’s wealthiest enclaves.

China now has more than 13 million delivery riders. The average pay per order has more than halved over the last few years. Yet the number of riders has multiplied several times during the same period so now there’s more workers than ever chasing lower-paid orders.

The video has since been removed from the LifeLab website, but fragments of the film and some articles discussing it are still available on WeChat and continue to circulate.

One line in particular has resonated, spoken by a noodle shop owner who also offers delivery services:

“I feel like I’m just an average person, no different from the delivery riders.
The only difference is that I’m grinding away inside the shop while they’re out there braving the elements. It’s hard work for all of us.”
因为我觉得我也是一个普通人，跟送外卖的一样，只不过我是在店里熬，他们是风里来雨里去的，都很辛苦。

And with that, we have our Sinica Phrase of the Week.

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What it means

“Brave the elements” (风里来雨里去 fēng lǐ lái yǔ lǐ qù) is a colloquial expression that describes the hardship of physical labour. The five characters translate as “wind” (风), “in” (里), “come” (来), “rain” (雨), “in” (里), “go” (去) — literally, to come in the wind and leave in the rain, working through whatever the weather throws at you.

The phrase is widely cited as originating in the 1958 novel River Fen Flows On (汾水长流), by Hu Zheng (胡正), a writer from Shanxi province (山西) who was part of the “Potato School” (山药蛋派) of writters — a group of mid-twentieth century novelists who wrote in plain rural vernacular about everyday life in northern Chinese villages.

River Fen Flows On is set in a Shanxi farming community in the early years of the People’s Republic, and follows villagers navigating the upheavals of agricultural collectivisation.

The phrase appears in Chapter 19, spoken by a woman scolding her husband for sleeping through a downpour while she works outside:

“All you do is sleep like the dead. Look at me, I’m soaked through, and you can’t even be bothered to get up and help me change.
What do you think I’m out there braving the elements for?”
你就知道睡死觉，人家淋成这样，也不说起来帮我换换衣衫。我这么风里来雨里去的是为了甚？

The phrase entered everyday Chinese and is now used to describe anyone whose work demands they push through harsh conditions, particularly outdoors. It’s commonly applied to police officers responding in typhoons, surveyors working in winter, or journalists chasing stories in the field.

In recent years, it has become closely associated with food delivery riders, whose work takes them out in all weather every day. Which is exactly how the noodle shop owner uses it in this context. Delivery riders are working through wind and rain doing what they have to do to survive and make ends meet.

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"Impostor Hotel" — Phrase of the Week

Andrew Methven — Sun, 17 May 2026 18:44:43 GMT

Artwork by Zhang Zhigang for RealTime Mandarin

Our phrase of the week is: “imposter hotel” (李鬼酒店 lǐ guǐ jiǔ diàn)

Context

An unusual story hit the top of social media hot search lists in the last week.

It started when a tourist in Dalian walked past a hotel during the Labour Day holiday. It was the Ji Hotel (全季) — a mid-range hotel chain with over 1,100 locations across China and one of the country’s most recognisable budget-to-midscale brands. The brand name directly translates as “All” (全) “Seasons” (季).

The tourist noticed something was off about the characters on the hotel sign. On a second glance, they realised the character for “season” (季 jì) had been replaced by the character for the common surname Li (李 lǐ).

To the untrained or non-native eye, these characters look the same. But the character for “season” (季) has one extra stroke at the top, without which it turns into the common surname, a completely different Chinese character.

Over the days after the image of this “Li Hotel” being posted online, social media users across the country shared sightings of other hotels with names almost identical to well-known chains, but with subtle tweaks to the characters in their names.

This is not a new phenomenon in China.

And there’s even a word for it:

These “impostor hotels” range from new establishments simply piggybacking on a brand name to former franchisees whose contracts have lapsed.
Guests typically only realise something is off once they’ve already checked in. But with prices cheaper than the legitimate chain and facilities that are functionally adequate, most will just vent their frustration on social media rather than take up the matter with the authorities.
这类”李鬼酒店”有些是纯蹭名字的新店，有些是合约到期的前加盟商。消费者往往入住了才发现不对，但价格比正规连锁便宜，设施也能凑活住，大多不会特意维权，顶多在评论区、社交媒体吐槽。

And with that, we have our Sinica Phrase of the Week.

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What it means

“Impostor hotel” is our translation of a four-character expression which breaks down into two parts: “Li Gui” (李鬼), “hotel” (酒店).

“Li Gui” is a character in Water Margin (水浒传), one of China’s Four Great Classical Novels, written in the Ming Dynasty (1368–1644) and attributed to Shi Nai’an (施耐庵). The story of Li Gui appears in Chapter 43, The Impostor Li Kui Robs Travellers on the Road; the Black Whirlwind Kills Four Tigers on Yi Ridge (假李逵剪径劫单人，黑旋风沂岭杀四虎).

Li Gui is a small-time bandit who impersonates another character in the story, Li Kui (李逵), nicknamed the Black Whirlwind (黑旋风). The Black Whirlwind is a beloved and famous outlaw, fearsome, loyal, impulsive, and known for wielding twin axes. His name alone is enough to strike fear into people.

In the story, Li Gui smears black ink on his face, takes up two axes, and haunts the mountain roads posing as Li Kui, extorting passers-by for money and their belongings.

Li Gui turned this into a profitable business. Until the day he tried it on the real Li Kui. When Li Gui tries his act on Li Kui, he is knocked to the ground by the real bandit and begs for his life. He claims he has a ninety-year-old mother at home with no one to care for her. So Li Kui, who is himself on his way home to fetch his own elderly mother, takes pity on him.

But first, Li Kui makes clear exactly who Li Gui has been impersonating:

“I am the very hero of the underworld, the Black Whirlwind Li Kui! You cur — you have dishonoured my name!”
“我正是江湖上的好汉黑旋风李逵便是！你这厮辱没老爷名字！”

Li Kui lets him go, even pressing ten silver taels into his hands. But mercy proves a mistake. That evening, Li Kui stumbles upon Li Gui’s house while looking for food, and overhears Li Gui plotting with his wife to drug and kill hero. So Li Kui kills Li Gui on the spot.

Over the centuries the name “Li Gui” (李鬼) entered mainstream language as shorthand for any fake sheltering behind someone else’s name and reputation. In modern Chinese, it means an impostor, a fake, a counterfeit, anyone or anything passing itself off as the real thing.

There’s an extra linguistic twist in this week’s story. The impostor Li Hotel swapped the character for “season” (季) for the surname Li (李) — the same character as Li Gui himself.

Just as Li Gui borrowed Li Kui’s fearsome name to rob travellers on the road, these hotels borrow the names of well-known chains to generate bookings.

"Pass the cost onto the end user" — Phrase of the Week

Andrew Methven — Sun, 10 May 2026 10:31:28 GMT

Artwork by Zhang Zhigang for RealTime Mandarin

Our phrase of the week is: “pass the cost onto the end user” (羊毛出在羊身上 yáng máo chū zài yáng shēn shang)

Context

On May 4, a statement appeared on Doubao’s (豆包) App Store page.

ByteDance’s flagship AI assistant, which is the most widely used in the country, announced it had added a paid subscription to its until-now free service.

There are three pricing tiers in Daobao’s premium offering: a standard plan at 68 yuan a month, an enhanced plan at 200 yuan, and a professional plan at 500 yuan.

In media discussions about the story this has raised a question for many in China: should AI be free?

Apps like Doubao are expensive to build and run. By March 2026, Doubao’s daily usage had hit 120 trillion tokens (the “raw material” AI runs on). This is equivalent to a doubling in usage in just three months, with monthly computing costs approaching one billion yuan.

And as costs rise, the makers of AI products like ByteDance have a choice:

One model is like Seedance, where early adopters enjoy a high-quality experience that inevitably degrades as the user base swells. To manage overhead, it quietly throttles resources, offering new users fewer tokens for the same price, while the response gets worse the more the user tries.The inevitable consequence? A growing chorus of users complaining that the “AI is getting stupider.”
The other is to aggressively pivot toward monetization to pass the cost. Some are experimenting with embedding ads directly into AI outputs—the classic “indirect monetization” play where the advertiser foots the bill. Others are moving toward straight-up subscription models, where they pass the cost directly onto the end user.
一种是SeeDance这样的，初期好用，用的人多了，后来的用户花同样的钱买到的Token越少，抽卡次数越多，输出质量越拉，“AI越来越难用”；一种是探索AI商业化，让用户来承担Token成本，比如在AI结果中塞广告，羊毛出在猪身上，再比如AI收费，羊毛出在羊身上。

And with that, we have our Sinica Phrase of the Week.

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What it means

“Pass the cost onto the end user” is our translation of a Chinese colloquial expression which translated directly is: “the wool comes from the sheep’s own back” (羊毛出在羊身上).

The imagery is that wool appears to grow freely on a sheep’s back. But from the sheep’s perspective, one cannot shear the wool, hand it back to the sheep and call it a gift. Whatever is offered has already come from them.

The earliest written record of the phrase appears in On Hearing That Mother Wang Has Ordered a Small Memorial Ceremony (闻王妈妈定做小祥功德作二首), a pair of poems by the Song Dynasty monk Daoji (释道济), better known by his nickname Ji Gong (济公). Ji Gong (1130-1209) was a Chan Buddhist monk celebrated in Chinese folklore as an eccentric healer who flouted monastic rules while championing the poor.

The relevant lines read:

“Two hundred coins for five dishes of food. So the wool comes from the sheep’s own back.”
二百衬钱五味食，羊毛出在羊身上。

The context of the poem is a humble street vendor is holding a memorial ceremony for her late husband. When Ji Gong and a friend encounter her, they wonder how someone of such modest means could afford such a lavish occasion.

Ji Gong concludes she can hold the ceremony because she is the one paying for it. She could have five dishes because she paid 200 coins out of her own pocket. The wool comes from the sheep’s own back.

In modern Chinese, the phrase is common in business. It’s usually translated as “you’re paying for it one way or another.” In other words, any apparent benefit or discount has already been baked into the price the recipient pays for and nothing is truly free.

In recent years, a more elaborate variation of the phrase has appeared: “the wool comes from the sheep, but it’s the pig that foots the bill” (羊毛出在猪身上). This is a description of the platform economy, where users enjoy free services subsidised by advertisers or investors: the sheep grazes for free; the pig pays.

China’s AI industry has been running on exactly that model. Free services have so far been bankrolled by investors and advertising. But those two models are now diverging. Either the pig (investors) keeps keep footing the bill with more investment. Or the cost is passed onto the sheep (the user) directly.

Doubao has just made its choice. Which is why in this context we translate “the wool comes from the sheep’s own back” as “pass the cost onto the end user.”

"Full-time children" — Phrase of the Week

Andrew Methven — Sun, 03 May 2026 10:02:42 GMT

Artwork by Zhang Zhigang for RealTime Mandarin

Our phrase of the week is: “full-time children” (全职儿女 quán zhí ér nǚ)

Context

An internet slang phrase which became popular two years ago has resurfaced in media discussions over the last few weeks.

It describes a growing number of young adults who’ve stopped looking for work altogether, and instead have moved back in with their parents.

They are “employed” to keep their parents company, help out around the house, maybe even work in the family business. In return, these young adults have their daily expenses covered by mum and dad.

In recent years, as property prices have soared, it’s already become the norm for parents to support their kids financially to buy a house, dipping into savings accumulated during China’s boom years.

That parental support is now extending further. With many parents are agreeing to “employ” their children at home rather than let them grind away in a low-paid job that barely covers rent and living expenses in the big city.

And with that trend comes a new phrase:

“Full-time children is a new buzzword for young adults who, instead of seeking traditional employment, stay at home to provide emotional support and help with household chores, while their parents cover their living expenses.”
这两年有个名词很火，叫”全职儿女”，顾名思义就是孩子不找工作，全职在家，给父母提供情绪价值或者一些基本的劳动力保障，然后自己的日常经济开销由父母提供。

And with that, we have our Sinica Phrase of the Week.

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What it means

“Full-time children” (全职儿女 quán zhí ér nǚ) is an internet buzzword. Breaking it down: “full-time” (全职), “children” (儿女).

It describes young adults who have left, or never made it into, the workforce. They move back in with their parents, take on household duties, and provide emotional support in exchange for having their living expenses covered.

The phrase is a new twist on an older slang term, “parasite generation” (啃老族), borrowed from Japanese internet culture. As the imagery suggests, that earlier term is negative.

“Parasite generation” first became a common expression in Japan during the economic crash of the 1990s, a period described as the “lost thirty years” (失去的30年). At that time many young people became trapped in low-paying jobs, unable to afford to buy a home. Large numbers gave up working and moved back in with their parents, living off family savings.

“Full-time children” carries a different, slightly more positive meaning. These young people are not simply taking, like so-called parasites. They provide real services to the household: cooking, cleaning, caring for ageing grandparents, and offering the kind of daily companionship that parents value.

For many, it also makes more financial sense than enduring the punishing “involuted” (内卷) conditions of big-city employment, with long hours, low pay, and the high cost of urban living.

And with elderly parents increasingly in need of support, and young people increasingly unable to find stable work or afford to buy a house, staying home and being “employed” by the family is a win-win for both.

So “full-time children” has become one way of naming, and perhaps even normalising, a reality many families are already living.

"In the bag" — Phrase of the Week

Andrew Methven — Sun, 26 Apr 2026 10:08:48 GMT

Artwork by Zhang Zhigang for RealTime Mandarin

Our phrase of the week is: “in the bag” (探囊取物 tàn náng qǔ wù)

Context

The second Beijing Human and Humanoid Robot Half Marathon took place on April 19 in Yizhuang (亦庄), a district in the southeastern suburbs of the capital.

102 teams competed in the race, with over 300 robots from 26 brands running alongside human competitors on the same course.

The winner was a surprise to many, and a new entrant this year: Lightning (闪电). Built by smartphone manufacturer, Honor (荣耀), Lightening completed the race in 50 minutes and 26 seconds, smashing the human world record for that distance, and beating last years’s best time of 2 hours 40 minutes by two thirds.

Second, third, fourth, fifth, and sixth places were also taken by Honor-made robots. Which is a stunning achievement considering the firm’s robotics division was only established less than a year ago.

Although Honor’s dominance on the podium did come as a surprise to many, it was not such a shock to the Honor team. They went into the race with confidence as Lightning had already broken the human record in the pre-race dry run, and that wasn’t even at feel speed:

After the robot from Honor shattered human records while “holding back” during pre-race testing…
The team knew the race was in the bag.
在开赛前一周的全要素路测中，荣耀机器人“收着跑”仅发挥七八成功力，就打破了人类最好半马纪录，团队内部当时就觉得，夺冠已是“探囊取物”。

And with that, we have our Sinica Phrase of the Week.

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What it means

“In the bag” is our translation of a classical Chinese idiom which translates directly as “explore” (探 tàn), “pouch” (囊 náng), “take” (取 qǔ), “object” (物 wù).

Literally it means “reaching into a bag to retrieve something”. It describes a task so easy it requires no effort at all.

The phrase originates from the New History of the Five Dynasties (新五代史), a historical text compiled in the 11th century by the Song Dynasty scholar and statesman Ouyang Xiu (欧阳修), one of the most celebrated writers and officials of his era.

The story behind the idiom dates to the Five Dynasties period (907–960 CE), a turbulent era of shifting kingdoms in China. A scholar named Han Xizai (韩熙载) was fleeing the Central Plains after his father was killed by the emperor. Fearing he would meet the same fate he sought refuge in the southern kingdom of Wu.

Han’s close friend Li Gu (李榖) came to see him off at the border. As he departed, Han boasted to his friend, if the kingdom of Wu appointed him as prime minister he would lead troops back north and pacify the Central Plains.

Li Gu replied to his friend with equal confidence:

“Yes, but if the northern states appointed me as their chancellor…
Conquering the southern kingdoms would be as easy as retrieving an item from a pouch.”
中国用吾为相，取江南如探囊中物尔。

Neither man’s ambitions came to pass.

Han Xizai never rose to power in the Kingdom of Wu. Passed over by the court, he retreated into a life of wine and revelry. Li Gu did go on to become a military commander, leading successful campaigns against the southern kingdoms. But chancellor he never became.

The idiom, however, survived them both. Later generations distilled the exchange into the four-character phrase said by Li Gu: “easy as retrieving an item from a pouch” (探囊取物).

In modern Chinese, it’s used to describe any task that feels easy or like a foregone conclusion. Something accomplished with such ease that the outcome was never really in doubt.

In English it can be translated as “a piece of cake”, or “easy as pie”. But in this context we prefer “in the bag” which carries the same meaning in English, and fits with the imagery of the original idiom story.

Which is exactly how Honor’s robotics team felt after Lightning broke the human half-marathon world record in the practice run. For them, winning the race itself the following day was pretty much “in the bag”.

And they were proved right.

Read more about how this story is being discussed in the Chinese media in this week’s RealTime Mandarin.

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"Mockupation" — Phrase of the Week

Andrew Methven — Sun, 19 Apr 2026 10:46:05 GMT

Artwork for RealTime Mandarin by Zhang Zhigang

Our phrase of the week is: “mockupation” (假装上班 jiǎ zhuāng shàng bān)

Context

China’s job market has never been more competitive.

Youth unemployment is at around 19%, with a record number of “unfinished kids” (烂尾哇) chasing a shrinking pool of jobs. The gap between finishing university and finding work has become a painful process of “removing the long gown of Kong Yiji” (脱下孔乙己的长衫).

In tech, meanwhile, layoffs of mid-level and senior staff are on the rise, as their roles are “optimised” (优化) and they are “replaced and eliminated” (汰换) by AI.

It’s in this context that a surprising new trend has been emerging in China’s employment landscape. There’s no official English name for it yet. So we came up with one:

The pinnacle of professionalism might just be the ability to stay on duty when you have lost your job.
Their commitment has given birth to a new type of company that is popping up all across the country: Mockupation startups.
上班的最高境界是什么？或许是：现实已无班可上，内心却始终”在岗”。最近全国各地冒出来了一批新的公司：假装上班公司。

And with that, we have our Sinica Phrase of the Week.

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What it means

“Mockupation” is our translation of a newly coined Chinese phrase which combines these two phrases: “to pretend” (假装 jiǎzhuāng), and “to go to work” (上班 shàngbān).

This phrase began surfacing in late 2024, as videos of people documenting their mock occupations spread across Chinese social media.

By early 2025 “mockupation companies” (假装上班公司) were springing up in cities across China.

They provide office space for people to be at their pretend jobs — who have been out of work, or never managed to find a job in the first place.

Mockupation companies look any normal office, but the people in there are not employees, they are paying to be there. A small desk goes for as little as 100 yuan a month, a larger one for 150.

For the people using these mockupation companies, they get structure, routine, and a psychological anchor of people “coming together to support each other” (抱团取暖).

Which, in the current job market in China, is a much needed relief from the otherwise grim outlook.

For some people, it’s got so bad it feels better to pretend like they have a job and avoid the social stigma of being out of work.

Which is why we translate this week’s phrase as “mockupation”.

"Dong Yuhui keeps getting away with it" — Phrase of the Week

Andrew Methven — Sun, 12 Apr 2026 10:31:04 GMT

Artwork by Zhang Zhigang for RealTime Mandarin

Our phrase of the week is: “an abrupt end” (法不责辉 fǎ bù zé huī)

Context

One of China’s most famous livestream hosts, Dong Yuhui (董宇辉), is facing a consumer backlash.

In early April, a CCTV reporter exposed a health supplement sold by Dong called “Youthit” (优思益) — marketed as a premium Australian eye supplement made by a company called Yarra Vibe, priced at 293–434 yuan per bottle.

The reality was very different: made in China, and owned by a Chinese shell company registered at an Australian address that turned out to be a car repair warehouse on the outskirts of Melbourne.

Dong Yuhui’s channel, Time with Hui (与辉同行), was Youthit’s single largest sales platform with an estimated 40% of total sales, worth 10–25 million yuan ($1.4–3.4M USD).

In response to the controversy, Dong’s team was slow to respond, issuing three statements that didn’t address the problem.

And this wasn’t a one-off. Youthit was Dong’s third fake product controversy this year. Each time, Dong has used carefully worded language to distance himself from the offending product, and any liability.

That’s a problem for someone who built his reputation as a “cultural figure” (文化人). His fans trust him, and they pay a premium for what he promotes because of it.

Now that trust is being eroded.

And there’s a new idiomatic phrase to explain why:

Recently, the catchphrase “Dong Yuhui keeps getting away with it” has gone viral.
A play on the old adage “the law does not punish the masses”, the four-character phrase highlights the seemingly untouchable status of Dong Yuhui and his team amidst a string of recent live-streaming controversies.
最近，”法不责辉”成了网络流行语。这四个字借用了老话”法不责众”的壳，指向了主播董宇辉及其团队在多起带货争议中的处境。

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What it means

“Dong Yuhui keeps getting away with it” (法不责辉) is our translation of a new play on the classical Chinese idiom, “the law does not punish the multitude” (法不责众).

Breaking the meaning down: “law” (法), “does not” (不), “punish” (责), “masses” (众).

But in this new version, the final character “the multitude” (众) is replaced with Hui (辉) from Dong Yuhui’s name (董宇辉).

The original, “the law does not punish the multitude” (法不责众), traces back to the Qing Dynasty novel, The Little Five Heroes (小五义), by Shi Yukun (石玉昆), a storyteller and writer best known for his contributions to the chivalric fiction genre.

For hardcode Phrase of the Week fans, Shi Yukun is the originator of our two previous Phrases: "Arrive with excitement, leave in disappointment" (乘兴而来，败兴而归), and "There is no 300 taels of silver buried here" (此地无银三百两).

In one scene of The Little Five Heroes, a warlord forbids everyone in a village from drinking alcohol, warning that anyone in a caught will be beheaded. So someone comes up with a plan: first get fifty people to have a round, then recruit another fifty for a second round. The logic being the warlord can’t possibly execute all 100 of them. So everyone drinks, and walks away as if nothing happened.

In Chapter 38, the crowd reaches their collective conclusion:

“Everyone talked it over — the law does not punish the multitude — and they all left.”
大家一议论，法不责众，全走了。

This scene reflects the realities of imperial governance at that time.

Feudal law was often enacted against the interests of ordinary people. But if the authorities tried to punish large groups en masse, they risked open revolt. So officials often went for a pragmatic middle ground: let the crowd off, and make an example of the ringleader. So the many escape and the few at the top are punished.

It’s also worth noting that the “law” here has nothing to do with the legal system. It’s closer to a popular folk wisdom — an ordinary person’s understanding of how rules and consequences actually work.

In modern Chinese it can describe any situation where a large number of people break the rules or fail to meet a standard, but nobody ends up being seriously dealt with. In other words: when everyone is doing it, it becomes harder to hold any one person to account.

The original describes a crowd too large to punish, but the newly coined phrase describes one man who keeps escaping accountability — Dong Yuhui. Because, apparently, the rules simply do not apply to him.

And in China’s internet culture, that is damaging. Which is why we translate this new idiom, “the law does not punish the Hui” (法不责辉), as “Dong Yuhui keeps getting away with it.”

But for how long?

P.S — Want to read more about how this story is being discussed in the Chinese media?

Tune into this week’s RealTime Mandarin.

And if you want to go deeper into Dong Yuhui’s career, I have great news for you!

We’ve been tracking him since the beginning:

With this latest development, could Dong Yuhui’s career be coming to an end?

My guess is this is the first hint at that.

Because when the Chinese internet invents critical idiom about influencers, it normally signals the beginning of the end.

As Austin Li found in 2021 with the invention of ‘Austin Li’s uncontrollable success’ (琦虎难下).

What are your thoughts?

"An abrupt end" — Phrase of the Week

Andrew Methven — Sun, 05 Apr 2026 10:02:55 GMT

Artwork by Zhang Zhigang for RealTime Mandarin

Our phrase of the week is: “an abrupt end” (戛然而止 jiá rán ér zhǐ)

Context

On March 24, education influencer Zhang Xuefeng (张雪峰) died suddenly in Suzhou from cardiac arrest. He was only 41 years old.

For readers of Sinica Phrase of the Week, Zhang Xuefeng is a familiar name. He is one of China’s most recognisable internet celebrities, and has made a name for himself as a “gaokao college application planning advisor” (高考志愿规划师).

Zhang capitalised on his fame and built a successful education business. Many criticised him for “making money off people’s anxieties” (靠焦虑来赚钱). But for millions of parents he offered a lifeline to navigate the pressures of academic results, university choices, and graduate employment.

His sudden death came as a shock to many, as one commenter put it:

Some mourned the loss of a straight shooter who dared to speak the truth.
Others were struck by how his life was brought to an abrupt end.
“So it turns out people don’t only die when they’re old. People can die at any moment.”
有人惋惜世上少了一个敢讲真话的硬骨头；也有人被这种“戛然而止”击中——“原来人不是到老了才会死，人是随时都会死的”。

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What it means

“An abrupt end” is the translation of a classical Chinese idiom, whose individual characters mean: “a sound that stops unexpectedly” (戛然 jiá rán), “and thus it stops” (而止 ér zhǐ).

The idiom originates in the Comprehensive Meaning of Literature and History (文史通义), a major work of literary criticism written by Zhang Xuecheng (章学诚), a prominent historian and philosopher of the Qing Dynasty.

In a chapter titled Ten Flaws of Classical Prose (古文十弊), Zhang uses the phrase to describe the dramatic rhythmic effect a skilled writer can achieve:

“Great writing follows a path that is as mysterious and masterful as those of the gods.
It arrives like a sudden bolt of lightning, and it ceases with an abrupt, sharp silence.
Has there ever been a truly great work that did not possess such power?”
夫文章变化，侔于鬼神，斗然而来，戛然而止，何尝无此景象？

Zhang was explaining the most powerful prose keeps a reader off balance, by throwing in surprises, and cutting out just as sharply. So here the idiom carries it’s literal meaning — a sudden, abrupt stop in mid-flow.

Over the years it’s use extended do describing anything which comes to an abrupt end. In modern Chinese, the idiom most commonly appears as an adverbial describing the moment something unexpectedly ends, such as a life.

In the context of Zhang Xuefeng’s sudden death, the idiom describes how a life was tragically brought to an end so abruptly, and underscores how shocked people are by his death, and the fragility of life.

“A mantis trying to stop a chariot” — Phrase of the Week

Andrew Methven — Sun, 29 Mar 2026 10:03:11 GMT

Artwork by Zhang Zhigang for RealTime Mandarin

Our phrase of the week is: “a mantis trying to stop a chariot” (螳臂当车 táng bì dāng chē)

Context

Rumours that iFlytek (科大讯飞) and NetEase (网易) — two of China’s biggest tech companies — are planning large-scale layoffs have been circulating on social media since the middle of March.

Both companies have denied the rumours. But nonetheless the news has hit a nerve with many people who work in the tech sector. Because they fear their jobs will be replaced by AI.

Parallels were drawn in media discussions between tech employees today and the Luddites — textile workers in early 19th century Britain who faced being replaced by machines that were faster, cheaper, and never needed to sleep.

Their resistance was ultimately futile. And some fear the same fate awaits China’s anxious tech workers today — a sentiment captured perfectly by a classical Chinese idiom:

“History books wrote them off as a joke: a bunch of backward elements afraid of progress, a mantis trying to stop a chariot.”
历史书把他们写成笑话：一群害怕进步的落后分子，螳臂当车。

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What it means

“A mantis trying to stop a chariot” (螳臂当车) is a very old idiom.

The individual characters mean: “mantis” (螳 táng), “arms” (臂 bì), “block” (当 dāng), “chariot” (车 chē).

It’s origin is the Zhuangzi (庄子), the foundational Daoist philosophical text compiled in the 3rd–2nd centuries BCE, attributed to the philosopher Zhuangzi (庄子). In Chapter 4, In the Human World (人间世), a wise man warns a student against taking a dangerous post at the court of a volatile prince. He uses a cautionary tale:

“Do you not know the story of the praying mantis?
It stretches out its arms to stop the chariot with all its might, unaware that it is not up to the task.”
汝不知夫螳螂乎？怒其臂以当车辙，不知其不胜任也。

He describes how when a mantis sees a chariot bearing down on it, the insect raises its forelegs in defiance, believing that show of aggression will stop the much larger chariot barrelling towards it — which of course it can’t.

The wise man’s point is simple: know what you are up against before you act.

In modern Chinese, the idiom is often used in combination with another four-character phrase:

A mantis trying to stop a chariot — blind to its own limitations
螳臂当车，不自量力

It describes someone who overestimates their own strength. Unlike a brave underdog, the mantis is a fool about to be crushed.

In this week’s source article, the writer uses it to describe how history judged the Luddites — dismissed as backward reactionaries who tried to hold back the unstoppable tide of industrialisation.

]Workers across China’s tech sector are feeling the same thing those textile workers felt two centuries ago. The changes brought about by AI are bearing down on them. They must adapt, get out of the way, or be crushed.

Because the chariot will not stop.

"Pitfall major" — Phrase of the Week

Andrew Methven — Sun, 22 Mar 2026 11:02:22 GMT

Artwork by Zhang Zhigang for RealTime Mandarin

Our phrase of the week is: “pitfall majors” (天坑专业 tiān kēng zhuān yè)

Context

The Communication University of China (中国传媒大学) says it’s discontinuing 16 of its undergraduate degrees.

According to the university’s party secretary, Liao Xiangzhong (廖祥忠), traditional subjects like translation, photography, visual communication design, arts management, and comics are to be axed.

The story exploded on social media. An open letter written by some students at the university was shared tens of thousands of times online. In the letter they asked:

“Will our diplomas still be recognised? What will happen to our remaining classes?”
毕业找工作，用人单位看到我们专业没了，会不会觉得我们是“被淘汰的人”？

Communication University responded, saying it’s not just cancelling these 16 subjects; it’s adapting what it teaches to fit changes in technology and the world of work. So the axed subjects will be merged into other degrees.

But that’s little consolation for students currently in those degrees, or those considering them in the near future:

“It’s foreseeable that in the next round of university curriculum reforms, majors that are overly technical or too narrow in scope risk becoming the new ‘pitfall majors.’”
可以想见，在新一轮的高校专业改革中，那些过于工具化，过于单一的专业，恐怕就会成为新的”天坑专业。”

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What it means

“Pitfall major” is a four-character phrase which translates directly as “sky pit” (天坑), “specialised field” (专业).

In British English, we would translate it as “dead-end degree” — a university degree that leads to low pay, harsh working conditions, or poor job prospects.

In Chinese, “sky pit” (天坑) means sinkhole. China has some of the world’s most dramatic sinkholes, particularly in Chongqing and Guangxi, where the earth drops away into vast, seemingly bottomless caverns.

The character “pit” (坑) is also Chinese slang for “deceiving” someone or “getting them into trouble”. So in this context, the phrase “sky pit”, or “pitfall”, carries both of these meanings.

The phrase “pitfall major” (天坑专业) first gained traction on Chinese internet forums in the early 2010s, where students began ranking degrees by how bad their career prospects were.

The original big three “pitfall majors” were biology (生物), chemistry (化学), and environmental science (环境科学), fields that require years of postgraduate study but offer limited job opportunities. Education influencer Zhang Xuefeng (张雪峰) later expanded this to four, declaring that materials science (材料科学) belonged in the same category. These big four became known by the shorthand expression “生化环材”.

Graduates of these subjects find themselves in a cycle of low pay and limited job prospects. They spend their entire careers “climbing out of the pit” (爬坑), a phrase describing someone trying to make the best of a bad academic choice.

As China’s job market became increasingly competitive and “involuted” (内卷) — a term we’ve covered before — the number of degrees defined as “pitfall majors” expanded beyond the sciences, to law, philosophy, history and beyond.

Now, with AI beginning to reshape the world of work, the axing of traditionally popular arts degrees by Communication University is a sign of how far the “pitfall major” label has travelled.

"Raising the lobster" — Phrase of the Week

Andrew Methven — Sun, 15 Mar 2026 11:03:09 GMT

Artwork by Zhang Zhigang for RealTime Mandarin

Our phrase of the week is: “Raising the lobster” (养龙虾 yǎng lóng xiā)

Context

OpenClaw is one of the most discussed topics on Chinese social media at the moment.

It’s an open source AI agent which helps users build teams of AI assistants. These assistants can manage real-world tasks like sending emails, managing calendars, and running social media accounts.

Developed by Austrian programmer, Peter Steinberger, OpenClaw launched in late 2025. By January 2026, it had caught on in China. Tencent Cloud and Alibaba Cloud launched setup services to help non-tech-savvy users install the AI. ByteDance and Alibaba’s Qwen followed. And on March 6th, nearly 1,000 developers and AI enthusiasts gathered outside Tencent’s headquarters in Shenzhen for a free installation event.

Short videos of people running their AI agents have flooded flooded social media feeds as the craze jumped from the tech world into the mainstream.

And with it came a new phrase:

“From coders to regular users, the whole country is obsessed with ‘raising the lobster’.
The OpenClaw craze is absolutely everywhere on Douyin right now.”
抖音上，”全民养龙虾”的短视频刷屏，从程序员到普通用户，几乎全社会都参与其中。

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What it means

“Raising the lobster” is a newly coined expression which means training your OpenClaw AI assistant. Breaking it down: “to raise or keep” (养 yǎng), as in raising children, keeping pets, or nurturing habits; and “lobster” (龙虾 lóngxiā).

The lobster connection starts with the name and the logo. The project was originally called Clawd — deliberately similar to Anthropic’s AI, Claude. When Anthropic pushed back over the trademark, developer Peter Steinberger kept the lobster theme through a brief rename to Moltbot, before deciding on the name, OpenClaw. The red cartoon lobster stayed as the logo throughout.

In China the lobster theme stuck, so the Chinese name became “crayfish”, or literally “small lobster” (小龙虾 xiǎo lóngxiā). Running your own OpenClaw became “raising a lobster” (养龙虾 yǎng lóngxiā).

The idea of “raising” implies how users need to feed their AI agents with tokens, train it with new skills, and monitor and improve performance. The AI requires ongoing attention like a pet which needs “feeding” (喂饲料) and “training” (调教), which are both essential phrases in the process of “raising the lobster”.

And this is exactly what so many people are doing in China right now — “raising their lobsters” (养龙虾). As well as this three-character phrase, there are also other common versions, like the shorter “lobster raising” (养虾), and also “lobster farmer” (养虾人).

So, now you know the best conversation-starter when you’re catching up with family, friends, or colleagues in China:

“Are you raising the lobster?” (你养虾了吗？)

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