宅男 (up-to-date term)

In the past, when parents wanted to reward their kids for good performance, they might take them out for a good time. These days, however, taking kids out could be taken as a “punishment”懲罰(cheng2 fa2).

I’m not kidding. These days kids would rather stay home playing online games 線上遊戲(xian4 shang4 you2 xi4) or hanging online doing who-knows-what than go out for fun. One of my friends told me that her 12-year-old son begged her for an extention of time for him to play online games as a reward instead of anything else. I once read a mum saying that whenever she wants to punish her kids for their misbehavior, she would say, “We’re going out this weekend, the WHOLE weekend!”

That explains why we have such a term as宅男(zhai2 nan2) nowadays. It is generally believed this term came from a Japanese TV series Densha Otoko 電車男(dian4 che nan3), train man, a “purportedly true story of a 23-year-old who intervened when a drunk man started to harass several women on a train, who ultimately begins dating one of the women.” (Densha Otoko, Wikipedia)

Originally the term was more derogatory, referring to those who are absorbed in online games, comics or animations; those who are obsessive with things such as electronic products; those who always stay home with messy looks and in sluggish clothing; those who are inept at social skill. . .

But since the word 宅means house or residence as in 住宅(zhu4 zhai2), people tend to associate the term with a neutral meaning referring to those who love to stay home instead of going out. We not only have宅男,but 宅女(zhai2 nu3) for female. Consequently the word 宅is sometimes used as an adjective. For example, I can say 我很宅(wo3 hen3 zhai2), I am very宅,to mean that I love to stay home, more or less as a self-mocking.

Take CBS’s hot sit-com The Big Bang Theory for example. It is titled as宅男行不行(zhai2 nan2 xiang2 bu4 xiang2) in Taiwan. The four nerd characters are directly called宅男 in the title. Take a closer look at the four, you’ll find a lot of characteristics corresponding to those of 宅男.

The four nerds, all with advanced educational background in science, spend a lot of time playing online games or hanging out at comic store on a regular basis. Raj has so much trouble speaking to women that he turns mute in front of them unless drunk. Sheldon, played by Jim Parson who later won a Golden Globe Award, causes so much laughter in his ignorance of social norms, who I think shows abundant symptoms of Asperger syndrome.

The four characters, though dramatized, in some way show some typical traits of宅男 (and nerd as well). Frankly speaking, with so much fun you can get online, who would want to go out suffering with the weather and the polluted air and the hustle and bustle?

Well, it’s about time that I, a宅 mum, moved my ass from my computer to yell at my宅 son Steve, who is going to college in two weeks and has been staying in front of his computer for the whole summer, “MOVE YOUR ASS FROM YOUR COMPUTER AND GET OUT FOR SOME EXERCISE!”

懲罰=惩罚

線上遊戲=在线游戏

Black cat vs. 辣妹 (up-to-date term)

What does it exactly mean when you hear someone describing his or her grandma in South Min Dialect as a “black back” 黑貓(hei mao)when she was young?

It was a common expression for a beautiful woman in my mom’s generation. You can imagine the term “black dog,” 黑狗(hei gou3) as a counterpart referring to a good-looking man. Sometimes we’ll add the word 兄(xong), brother to it as黑狗兄.

These days the terms are hardly used. Instead you hear people calling pretty girls正妹(zheng4 mei) (with 妹pronounced as mei instead of its usual tone mei4 .) or美眉(mei3 mei2). Compared with美女(mei3 nu3), beauty, these two terms appeared quite lately and are usually used for those young girls, while the latter has a much broader range. You may call a 70-year-old 美女, but it would sound weird to use正妹 or 美眉to describe her.

The British pop girl group Spice Girls is called 辣妹合唱團(la4 mei4 he2 chang4 tuan2) in Taiwan. 辣means spicy hot, which was originally used for the flavor of food. For pungent or acrimonious remarks, we’ll use the term辛辣(xin la4) for them. With the popularity of the group Spice Girls, 辣妹 is often heard to call those young girls, especially those who dress themselves or act in a revealing, provoking style. I think  it is also influenced by the English word “hot.”

Adjectives like帥(shuai4) ,英俊(ying jun4)，瀟灑(xiao sa3)used to be mentioned quite often to describe good-looking men, and so was the noun 帥哥(shuai4 ge). These days, however, it doesn’t sound so chic to use these terms.

According to Wikipedia, in 1994 a new term “metrosexual” was coined in by Mark Simpson in an article where he described a man (especially one living in an urban culture) who spends a lot of time and money on shopping for his appearance. The term is translated into 都會美型男(du hui4 mei3 xing2 nan2). As a result, 型男(xing2 nan2) has been frequently mentioned to refer to those men with the charisma of Beckham or Brad Pitt. And sometimes we’ll say someone, especially male, is quite有型(you3 xing2), meaning he has his personal style and is uniquely charming.

As to those macho hunks of muscles, we call them猛男(meng3 nan2), which is often used as a counterpart of辣妹. In a 猛男 show, you’ll see dancing men casting their charm to the screaming women.

  

The word “old” has turned a taboo word. For those who have past the age of正妹 or辣妹, somewhere after 30 or so, (some people put 25 as the threshold.) people will call them熟女. 熟 means ripe, mature.

To write this article, I surfed online and learned that age is not the only requirement for a 熟女. To be a 熟女, they got to have their own career so as to be financially independent. With their abundant experiences, they are confident, wise, mature and skillful socially. Carry in Sex and the City is an example. They are divided into 輕熟女(qing shou2 nu3) and 重熟女(zhong4 shou2 nu3) according to their age. 輕 means light while重, heavy. Some people define the latter as women ranging from 36 to 42.

What about women after 42? Haven’t those creative people exercised their brains that are rife with ideas and come up with any innovative terms? Does it mean that few people care about women who have passed 42? Or, they just look much alike anyway?

黑貓=黑猫

辣妹合唱團=辣妹合唱团

都會美型男=都会美型男

輕熟女=轻熟女

 

仆街—吃飽了撐著 (up-to-date term)

Sometimes when you go dinging at an all-you-can-eat restaurant, you might unconsciously eat more than you usually do and get full up. We’ll call this 吃撐了(chi cheng le), getting too full.

So when someone seems to have too much time on hand and is up to something meaningless, such as meddling into others’ affair that is none of his concern, we’ll say he’s吃飽了撐著(chi bao3 le cheng zhe), getting too full up.

Recently the term has been related to a new craze “planking” in a news report as my title. Planking,” or the act of lying face down for a photo op in weird and wonderful places. It carried on largely unnoticed until recently, gaining popularity in Australia and New Zealand. Since then it has become the latest Internet craze.

                                    (from NOWnews.com)

This craze is called 仆街(pu jie) in Taiwan, which is from Cantonese. Not speaking any Cantonese, I checked on the net and found several explanations about this term. In general the word 仆 means to fall; 街is street. The two words are combined to mean to fall, to drop dead on the street, which is a rude curse.

Two women from Taipei also jumped on the bandwagon. They made a name for themselves planking around Taiwan. They also received different responses from people around, from admiration to raised eyebrows. The craze caught even more attention after a young Australia man falling from a balcony when planking.

Somehow the Internet crazes, such as the flash mob 快閃族(kuai4 shan3 zhu2) and the仆街, remind me of the movie Rebels Without A Cause, where James Dean plays the extremely dangerous game of jumping out of the speeding car rushing to the cliff. It seems to have been so natural for young people, now or before, to attraction attention by some “meaningless,” or even “fatal” acts. To a lot of people, their acts might be scorned as senseless and 吃飽了撐著.

I don’t know why, but there’s a saying going around as 醜人多作怪(chou3 ren2 duo zuo4 guai4), ugly people like to stand out with their bizarre acts, which I think has a great influence on the acts of my generation. Since we were young, we were taught not to be different from others. We were asked to put on uniforms, wear the same hairstyle, carry the same book bag, read the same textbooks, and share the same values. We took caution not to stand out with different looks or acts, so that we would be left alone and wouldn’t be labelled as醜人多作怪, which I personally consider a discrimination to ugly people. The point is you don’t like someone’s looks. Consequently whatever he wears, whatever he does, it’s 作怪. But, who wants to be labelled as ugly anyway? You behave yourself as a result.

However, there has always been a craze for being unique. We’re afraid of being different, but we WANT to be different. We’re afraid of 作怪, but we WANT to作怪. So when someone came up with the idea of flash mob or planking, with the help of internet, many young people follow the trend to作怪 . It’s not so 作怪on the other hand, since so many people are doing the same thing. When people are snorting or criticizing such an act as meaningless, those young people might ask, “who says we should always do something ‘meaningful’?”

Back to the title of the report, it does not carry any negative implication about this planking stuff. It uses the term吃飽了撐著literally since in planking, you need to support撐著your body with the strength of your muscles around the belly and the back, which is strenuous.

I’d better exercise my brains to figure out something novel but not so strenuous for people of my generation to作怪. To get my inspiration, I should perhaps grab some food and feed myself first. After all, you got to be 吃飽了 before you got 撐著

吃飽了撐著=吃饱了撑着
快閃族=快闪族
醜人多作怪=丑人多作怪  

Herbivore men (up-to-date term)

I grabbed a publication from teacher’s desk and skimmed it when proctoring an exam. There was an interview with盧廣仲(lu2 guang3 zhong4),a young Taiwanese singer, where he called himself a草食男(zao3 shi2 nan2), literally meaning a “vegetation-eating” man, or a herbivore man.

I had heard the term several times before and had my own assumption about the meaning of it. I think basically it’s about the mildness and unaggressiveness of a certain group of men. Contrary to carnivore, 肉食動物(rou4 shi2 dong4 wu4), they are not so “macho”男子氣概 (nan2 zi3 qi4 gai4) or男子漢(nan2 zi3 han4), nor violent, 暴力(bao4 li4).

To understand the term more, I checked online and found some information. It is said that the term was coined by a Japanese writer 深澤真紀ふかさわ まき(1967- ) and has triggered some discussions in Taiwan. Unlike Japanese men in their 40s or 50s, who had to compete intensively for job or women, there’s a growing group of younger generation, in their 20s or 30s, who are quite the opposite of the older generations. According to some girlie magazine, a herbivore man has the following traits:

1.     prefers staying home to going out.

2.     takes a keen interest in fashion and personal looks.

3.     won’t take the initiative or being aggressive in a relationship.

4.     believes in friendship between men and women without sex and doesn’t consider sex indispensable.

5.     thinks men and women are equal and the both sides should share the household expenses and chores.

As a Chinese saying goes, 物極必反(wu4 ji2 bi4 fan4), everything converts to the opposite direction when it goes to an extreme. The herbivore generation is really quite different from the traditional 武士道精神(wu3 shi4 dao4 jing shen2), Bushido or samurai spirits.

Since Taiwan had been colonized 殖民(zhi2 min2) by Japan for half a century (1895-1945), we’re no strangers to samurai spirits. My grandfather’s and great grandfather’s generations were educated in that era, and in them you see a lot of influences of this Bushido. A lot of my peers were very afraid of their fathers and had hardly talked to them as kids, because they looked so stern and serious, who never seemed to show their emotions. They were the kings who ruled the family with authority and never shared the chores.

What was once considered right has been now labeled as Chauvinism 沙文主義(sha wun2 zhu3 yi4) or 大男人主義(da4 nan2 ren2 zhu3 yi4) and reprimanded, especially by women, who used to play the role of 小女人(xiao3 nu3 ren2), little woman. With the rise of feminism and the changes of the society, there has been some interesting mixing of the stereotyped gender qualities. Men are not supposed to be always so “carnivorous” and women, so “herbivorous.” In fact, we have 肉食女(rou4 shi2 nu3), carnivore women, as a counterpart of herbivore men.

For those carnivorous grandfathers, it might be a great pain to see their grandsons to put on make-up and go shopping with their female friends. It might be very hard for them to hold back their impulse to lecture their grandsons about how they should not spend so much time at home or on their looks; how they should go out to get a wife or pursue a career. But I have to say that’s the way the world is running now, like it or not.

I always feel that women’s liberation not only liberated women, but men as well. For those women that are not so “herbivorous,” they feel free to go out to chase whatever they want. For those草食男 , they won’t feel guilty to stay home contented. The world won’t be so boring with multiple values and people won’t have to suffer because they’re forced to change into something they’re not. (The way our parents’ generation forced their left-handed kids to use right hand, for example.)

I wonder if the fact we had two world wars in the last century has anything to do with the fact that we had so many carnivore, but few herbivore men. As a woman, I love to see herbivore men coexisting with carnivore ones. The world could be more peaceful with more herbivore men, I guess. Instead of shouting “make love, not war,” perhaps all we have to say is “Eat more vegetation, less meat!” At least you get healthier that way.  

盧廣仲=卢广仲

肉食動物=肉食动物

男子氣概=男子气概

男子漢=男子汉

深澤真紀=深泽真纪

物極必反=物极必反

沙文主義=沙文主义

小三 & 劈腿 (Law)

When seeing on an advertisement board on the street of Taiwan 「捉猴」(zhuo hou2), literally meaning to “catch the monkey,” have you asked yourself “what the heck is it?” Do they provide a monkey-capture service?

小三(xiao3 san), “small three” topic has been a huge hit here in Taiwan these days. Sensational plots about “small three” are being played in a hot TV soap opera; discussions on the same topic are blatantly going on in various TV talk shows. You check all over the dictionary trying to figure out what the term小三means, but in vain, because it has just been coined not for a long while.

I’ve never watched the soap opera mentioned above, which triggered the小三fever. But I know the term refers to the woman that is having an affair with a married man. Since we often call a mistress or a concubine小老婆(xiao3 lao3 po2), a small wife, which accounts for the word 小. And she is the third party in the marriage, which accounts for三, three.

We used to call the extra-marital affair 婚外情(hun wai4 qing2), or外遇 (wai4 yu4), you “meet” someone outside. But these days more often we’ll use the term劈腿(pi tui3), literally meaning splitting the legs, a dancing or kung-fu motion. I think it might has something to do with what we call 腳踏兩條船(jiao3 ta4 liang3 tiao2 chuan2), when you set each of your feet on two different boats. Namely, you’re involving yourself in two different situations, be it a job or a relationship. However, 劈腿 could be cheating on your spouse or boyfriend/girlfriend, while外遇 is only for a spouse.

The mistress would be 情婦(qing2 fu4); for a married woman’s lover it would be 情夫(qing2 fu). The wife would be 元配(yuan2 pei4), or 大老婆(da4 lao3 po2) to be contrary to 小老婆. In Taiwan the film “The First Wives Club” was translated as 大老婆俱樂部(da4 lao3 po2 ju4 le4 bu4)

When the 大老婆 is suspicious that her husband might be having an affair, she might go to a private eye for help. She needs to catch the couple red-handed, i.e. in bed. We call this 捉姦(zhuo jian). 捉means to catch, and I’ve introduce the word姦 , adultery, in our riddle for the Lantern Festival. So, here comes the key to the question I raised in the beginning, 捉猴 is actually pronounced in Taiwanese as lia3 gao2, meaning捉姦.

When this is done and the wife might want a separation分居(fen ju) , or even a divorce 離婚(li2 hun). She could need a lawyer律師(lu4 shi) and asks for alimony 贍養費(shan4 yang3 fei4). But things might not go so smoothly as custody for children監護權(jian hu4 quan2) is often fought over.

There’s a wide-spread saying that goes as 妻不如妾，妾不如偷(qi bu4 ru2 qie4, qie4 bu4 ru2 tou), a wife is lesser than a concubine; a concubine is lesser than an adultery. It perhaps expounds part of the reasons why we have so many 小三and why it has been so hot an issue these days. I remember how Diane Keaton, Goldie Hawn and Bette Miller singing and dancing on the street in “The First Wives Club” after they kicked their husbands’ asses. For those 大老婆who have been劈腿 by their husbands, it might be a big comfort to see such a scene!

腳踏兩條船=脚踏两条船

情婦=情妇

大老婆俱樂部=大老婆俱乐部

離婚=离婚

律師=律师

贍養費=赡养费

監護權=监护权