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失恋假 heartache leave
A Shanghai business recently followed the example of a Japanese marketing company in offering its employees paid time off to deal with the heartache suffered from a breakup with a partner. The older the age, the longer the time will be - apparently on the basis that younger people are more resilient in dealing with love or setbacks than their older counterparts.
塑身衣 shapewear
As the fashionable trend always transcends the gender border line, some men reportedly have tried on shapewear to catch up with their female counterparts.
森女 mori girl
The expression refers to women in their 20s who pursue a simple and natural lifestyle. First popular in Japan, it literally means girls living in wild forests. The word soon gained popularity among Netizens and developed wider use.
山寨锅 satellite TV copycat
The term refers to unauthorized cheap satellite TV receivers that are popular in villages. The Chinese term literally means “village pans,” partly because satellite TV dishes are called “pan” in Chinese and partly because “village” in China is commonly used to describe cheap copies.
素人 sirouto/layman/bungler
The Chinese expression comes from the Japanese and is mainly used to refer to those people who are inexperienced at doing a certain thing.
试消费 (trial consumption
The practice of trial consumption originated from Websites offering shopping tips. The trials are mostly initiated by catering, tourism or hotel services which offer a group of Web users free trials as a promotion campaign via word of mouth. It provides a reasonable alternative for consumers to avoid blind purchasing.
手机幻听 ringxiety
The term is formed from the words “ringtone” and “anxiety.” Ringxiety refers to the sensation and mistaken belief of some people who hear their mobile phones ringing or feel them vibrating, when actually the telephone is silent. The reason for this could be psychological or neurological, especially for those office workers who rely highly, perhaps obsessively, on the communication tool in both work and life.
十三点 Bubble-brained, wacky, frivolous
This phrase means literally “13 points.” Again, there are quite a few explanations about how the term has become such a widely used phrase among Shanghainese speakers.
In pai gow, or Chinese dominoes, it’s a bummer if you take two cards that don’t add up to 13 points. In one kind of poker game, if all your cards add up to 13 points, you’ll be labelled as an “idiot.”
In the Chinese classic novel “The Butterfly Lovers,” the hero Liang Shanbo is so dumb that he has for a long time failed to realize that his closest classmate and pal, who disguised herself as a man, is actually a beautiful young lady. And the hero’s name reads almost the same as the figures 2, 3 and 8 in Shanghai dialect, which add up to 13.
So, one may say that Shanghai people have long shared the triskaidekaphobia (abnormal fear of number 13) with most Westerners, but for quite different reasons.
Some others, however, believe this term came from the English word “society,” which was once used in the city to mean “social butterfly” or “society woman.” The English word pronounces nearly the same as the figure 13 in Shanghai parlance and the latter, in modern usage, implies the characteristics of such women. As a result, the term is used to refer more often to women than men.
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发表于 2016-7-10 00:16:06