不讓你睡! (Euphemism)

After I finished my previous writing about some euphemisms for having sex, I remembered a slogan of a commercial for an energy drink, 不讓你睡(bu2 rang4 ni3 shui4), which literally means not letting you fall asleep, highlighting the effect of the energy drink. Seeing the big-boob girl saying the slogan in a sweet and suggestive voice in the commercial, plus a little understanding of Mandarin, you’ll know what you should read between the lines.

Like English, we use 睡覺(shui4 jiao4), to sleep with, as an euphemism of having sex. Accordingly the line不讓你睡 could mean “I won’t let you to sleep (with me).” Sometimes when I was trying to wake up a dozing student, the other students would say the line 不讓你睡 in a bantering tone. You see how the drink works for their energy.

Another quite updated euphemism is 四腳獸(si4 jiao3 shou4), four-foot monster, which pictures the scene when two people are together( which is also an euphemism在一起zai4 yi4 qi3) For example, you may see a headline on the paper like 公廁驚見四腳獸(gong ce4 jing jian4 si4 jiao3 shou4) meaning people getting startled by a couple having sex in the public toilet. They are not really monsters but together they got four feet.

Last month two students from University of Southern California were spotted having sex on the top of a building. We saw the headline as 校園驚見活春宮(xiao4 yuan2 jing jian4 huo2 chun gong), the live sex show startled the campus. 活 means live, real person, 春宮 is another euphemism for sex.

It is said that there used to be some portraits of beautiful women or pornographic paintings at the emperor’s palace for the emperor to appreciate. But some eunuchs spread out those paintings, which were later called 春宮圖(chun gong tu2). 春宮 means “spring palace” while圖is the painting.

So you know in Mandarin, the season spring 春 is related to sex or porn. You can say a brothel is 春色無邊(chun se4 wu2 bian). 春色is spring’s scenery, and無邊means borderless, abundant. But色, as scenery in 景色(jing3 se4), also means porn as in 色情(se4 qing2). Together with spring, the euphemism is quite obvious actually. For the shrieking of the cat before mating, it’s 叫春(jiao4 chun), which also refers to a woman’s panting and screaming while making love.

There are so many euphemisms in our life for sex as well as many other things. And I’d like to wrap up this writing with an old but refined one—燕好(yan4 hao3). 燕means the swallow. Why the swallow? It beats me too!

不讓你睡=不让你睡

睡覺=睡觉

四腳獸=四脚兽

公廁驚見四腳獸=公厕惊见四脚兽

校園=校园

春宮圖=春宫图

春色無邊=春色无边