Welcome back to another episode of our series “This Week We’ve Learned …”!

As language learners ourselves, we’re constantly coming across new words, expressions, grammar quirks, and cultural facts that catch our attention. Every week, we pick some of our most interesting discoveries and share them with you.

So, in each episode, you’ll find a random selection of things we’ve learned in Chinese during the past week; things we found useful, surprising, amusing, or simply worth sharing.

Let’s see what we’ve learned this week!

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How to say Social Butterfly in Chinese? Spoiler, it’s not a butterfly

We organized a belgian countryside gateaway the past weekend. Among the friends we invited was our lovely Sunny from Taiwan.

So of course we talk quite a bit of Chinese and learned some new words, one of them was 社牛 (shè niú), literally “Social Cow”. And it is basically the equivalent of the English expression “Social butterfly”.

The word is actually a short form of 社交牛逼症 (shèjiāo niúbī zhèng), meaning "social awesomeness syndrome" - with 牛逼 literally meaning a “cow’s c*nt” in case you didn’t know, but usually used to mean “awesome”.

Important to mention, the word is a Chinese slang and as she’s been living out of Taiwan for the past 10 years, so she wasn’t sure whether the expression was also used in Taiwanese Mandarin.

Are you a 社牛?

How to do political gaslighting in Chinese? Call deer a horse

Last week I discovered a fantastic idiom that became one of my favorites: 指鹿为马 (--為馬) [zhǐ lù wéi mǎ]. It literally means "to point at a deer and call it a horse."

It refers to deliberately distorting reality, especially in a political context. Behind it there is a fascinating story of one daring lie and almost despotic control.

After the death of Qin Shi Huang, the first emperor of China, the ambitious official Zhao Gao sought to seize control of the imperial court. He needed to determine which officials were loyal to him. One day, he brought a deer to court, insisting that it was a horse.

The new emperor was confused, but Zhao Gao asked the ministers to settle the matter. Fearing his influence, some agreed that it was a horse, while others insisted it was a deer. Zhao Gao later had those who refused to accept his lie put to death.

Even though this happened more than 2,000 years ago, it is striking how well it resonates with one of George Orwell’s most famous lines from 1984: “War is Peace. Freedom is Slavery. Ignorance is Strength.”

What about you? Would you call a deer a horse?

*Fun fact: there is also a more contemporary version of this idiom, 指鼠为鸭 (zhǐ shǔ wéi yā), which refers to an incident from two years ago in which a rat’s head was found in the food at the cafeteria of a vocational school in Jiangxi, while the school continued to insist that it was a duck.

A single expression for a shop or hotel that scams you

While talking with my Taiwanese friend about traveling around Europe, I asked her how to say “a tourist trap”. You can surely say 旅游陷阱 (lǚyóu xiànjǐng) (a literal “tourist trap”), but there is even a better way.

敲竹杠 (- - 槓) (qiāo zhú gàng) means taking advantage of someone to make them pay more (or give some benefit). I love that it literally means “to knock on a bamboo stick”: implying trying to get substance from something that is empty inside.

You can complain that:

那家餐厅看我们是外国游客，就想敲竹杠。
Nà jiā cāntīng kàn wǒmen shì wàiguó yóukè, jiù xiǎng qiāo zhúgàng.
That restaurant saw we were foreign tourists and tried to rip us off.

“Knocking the bamboo stick” also works in other contexts:

他知道我急著買票，就趁機敲我竹槓。
Tā zhīdào wǒ jí zhe mǎi piào, jiù chènjī qiāo wǒ zhúgàng.
He knew I was desperate to buy a ticket, so he overcharged me.

Something that Asian tourists in general complain a lot about when they visit Europe.

Thanks for reading!

Antoine & Dorota

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Welcome to this very first episode our this new series “This Week We’ve Learned …”. As you know our Mandarin Zest Substack mainly focused on two series; an HSK review on Mondays and a article analysis on Wednesdays.

While these series are structured and rich in practical information, they feel a bit unpersonal.

As we are both learners ourselves, we keep on discovering new words, expressions and cultural facts every week, and we thought it would be a good idea to share them with you. In this series, we will be sharing random Chinese language discovery we made during the past week.

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袐/秘 - “mì” vs. “bì”

Have you ever noticed how the character 袐/秘 is always pronounced “mì” like in 秘密 (mìmì) meaning secret. Yet, look at the transliteration of the country Peru 秘鲁/袐魯(Bìlŭ). The character 袐/秘 is then pronounced “bì”.

After doing some research, we found out that “bì” was the earliest pronouciation, and that was the pronunciation when China gave its name to Peru - 秘鲁. Overtime however, the pronunciation of the character changed to “mì”. But since 秘鲁 “mìlŭ” would no longer sound like “Peru”, they dicided to keep the old pronunciation only for this specific case.

Since then 袐/秘 is pronounced “bì” for 秘鲁, and “mì” in all the other words!

土豪 (tǔháo) - the Chinese “new rich”

On Monday, I was leading a study session for advanced Chinese learners, and we had an interesting discussion about the concept of “new rich” in China and how it compares to other countries in East Asia and beyond.

The “new rich” in Chinese is 土豪 (tǔháo). This word originally meant “a local tyrant” or “powerful landowner”. It is created with two words:

土 (tǔ) — earth, soil; also means unsophisticated or lacking refinement
豪 (háo) — wealthy, powerful, bold, extravagant

土豪 first referred to an “unsophisticated countryside landowner” who had money and power. The years of feudalism has been long gone, so the word now has a new definition.

From my experience, the concept of “new rich” behaviour often appears across Asia. In places such as Taiwan and Indonesia, I have encountered perceptions that often associate Chinese travellers with this image: a preference for luxury brands, status symbols, and more comfortable forms of travel.

In a sentence it would look like:

中国游客很土豪。
Zhōngguó yóukè hěn tǔháo.
"Chinese tourists are very tuhao (flashy/new rich)."

爱好 (àihào) vs 嗜好 (shìhào)

While recently talking with my Taiwanese friend, she introduced me to the word 嗜好 (shìhào) that I have never known before.

We were discussing men (yeah, I know) and she said that she doesn’t like when a man has a bad 嗜好.

Both 爱好 and 嗜好 mean "hobby, preference," but they have different tones and usage. 爱好 indicates a hobby or liking of something and is neutral or positive.

我的爱好是看书。
Wǒ de àihào shì kànshū.
My hobby is reading.

嗜好 is a more formal word that indicates something stronger, like obsession, strong inclination and is often related to a bad habit.

他有抽烟的嗜好。
Tā yǒu chōuyān de shìhào.
He has a habit of smoking.

Definitely not something I would personally like in a man!

Cats are mythical creatures

Look at the traditional character for cat, 貓. It is one of the few animal characters that contains the radical 豸, which is used to refer to mythical creatures and spirit animals. The radical itself is a variant of the character 廌, representing a Chinese unicorn.

And this is no coincidence. Cats have long been regarded as special animals in imperial China. As this passage from the Book of Rites clearly states:

“古之君子，使之必報之。迎貓，為其食田鼠也；迎虎，為其食田豕也，迎而祭之也。”

“The wise and gentle rulers of yore will always repay the good deeds that others have done for them. Welcome the cats, for they are hunters of mice; welcome the tigers, for they are hunters of boars; welcome them and worship them”.

Did you know that more than 200 cats inhabited the Forbidden City during the final years of the Qing dynasty, keeping the imperial palace free of rodents. And many of them were actually descendants of cats owned by previous dynasties.

In simplified Chinese (猫), the 豸 radical was replaced with 犭, which means “dog” but is used more broadly for a range of mammals. In doing so, the character was officially stripped of its connection to its more mystical origins.

My cat (in the picture) appreciates that I learned traditional characters, for he is a divine creature.

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Thanks for reading!

Antoine & Dorota

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