氣味相投 (Idiom)

I read on the paper that there have been so-called “pheromone parties” in some cities, where guests find their match by smelling. Before the parties, each guest has slept in a T-shirt for three nights in a row to capture their odor. Each T-shirt is put into a bag and assigned a number for the guests to smell. People in the parties find their dates based on scents.

In Chinese we have an idiom for this perfectly. When two people have a lot  in common, sharing similar interests or temperaments and are compatible with each other, we often say they’re氣味相投 (qi4 wei4 xiang tou2), having compatible scents.

According to Wikipedia, A pheromone is a secreted or excreted chemical factor that triggers a social response in members of the same species. Long before the term was coined, Chinese had used the idiom to describe people turning into friends because they have compatible scents.

Sometimes we might jokingly change it into “臭味相投(chou4 wei4 xiang tou2) ” to make fun of what we like. 臭味is stink.

You might be wrong if you think everyone likes fragrant smells. Some people, unlike most other, may have unique tastes and prefer stinky ones. We have a term for these people, 逐臭之夫(zhu2 chou4 zhi fu)，man who chase after smelly.

Another thing I’d like to bring up here is that in English we use “romantic chemistry” to refer to a romantic attraction between two people. In Chinese we use “electricity” as we say 來電 (lai2 dian4), literally meaning “having electricity.” Don’t mix this up with another condition, when someone’s calling you on the phone, we may also say “someone just來電. “

Pheromone or scent, they’re all chemistry in fact. I guess these terms all make sense.

氣味相投=气味相投

來電=来电