Our phrase of the week is: “tourist-trap souvenir trio” (冤种三件套 yuān zhǒng sān jiàn tào)
Context
This year’s Mid-Autumn Festival and National Day holidays were only three working days apart. So many people took the opportunity to combine them into one long holiday.
The travel platforms Ctrip (携程) and Tongcheng (同程) reported that cross-city trips leaving the day before Mid-Autumn Festival or on the day itself were up 18% compared to the Dragon Boat Festival break.
But many of those travellers came home with the same complaint: wherever they went, it felt as if they had been there before. A Weibo hashtag asking “How Homogeneous Have Scenic Spots Become?” (现在的景区同质化有多严重) has already racked up tens of millions of reads on the platform over the last couple of weeks.
And one phenomenon being discussed is the souvenirs on sale at these destinations, with a new phrase coined to describe them:
“The most classic of them all is probably the tourist-trap souvenir trio: hand cream, city fridge magnets and themed ice cream.”
其中最经典的，大概逃不过这“冤种三件套”：护手霜、城市冰箱贴以及文创雪糕。
And with that, we have our Sinica Phrase of the Week.
What it means
“Tourist-trap souvenir trio” (冤种三件套) is our translation of two internet slang terms combined into a new expression.
Broken down, the characters mean “wronged” (冤 yuān), “type” (种 zhǒng), “three” (三 sān), “piece” (件 jiàn), “set” (套 tào). A more literal translation would be “the sucker’s three-piece set.”
The first term in this new combo is the northern dialect slang, translated as “total sucker” or “gullible victim” (冤种). Originally common in places such as Chaoyang (朝阳) in Liaoning province, it described someone who has suffered an injustice and is left brooding over it.
In recent years, the rise online of “gullible victim” began with bloggers from the northeast, who used it in short videos to mock themselves with exaggerated self-pity:
“I’m just a big sucker” (我是个大冤种)
That stripped away its heavier original meaning, and it came to describe anyone who has done something foolish. In December 2022, “sucker”, along with its stronger form “big sucker” (大冤种), was named one of the top ten internet buzzwords of the year by Language and Writing Weekly (语言文字周报). It also made our own list that year.
The other part of this new phrase is the “three-piece set” (三件套). It’s become a popular template online. It is used to mock, or self-mock, the signature combination of three things, always negative, that defines a group of people, a lifestyle or a predicament.
The best known example of this is the “workhorse trio” (牛马三件套) which is a “mortgage” (房贷), a “car loan” (车贷) and “carrying on the family line” (传宗接代). These are the burdens expected of young people in China to shoulder for life. Another common one is the “middle-class poverty trio” (中产返贫三件套) which is having a maxed-out mortgage, a spouse who stays at home full-time, and children who study at international school.
This latest “three-piece set” is made up of three types of so-called “limited edition” (限版) branded souvenirs which seem to be on sale in every tourist destination across China. These are “hand cream” (护手霜), “city fridge magnets” (城市冰箱贴) and “themed ice cream” (文创雪糕) in the shape of local landmarks.
Over-priced and poor quality, the items in this “three-piece set” are probably all produced by the same supplier in Yiwu (义乌). So many tourists have stopped buying this tat and instead they browse, try the samples, take their selfies with the item, and walk away.
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.
