Name: Niubi!
ISBN: 9780452295568

Chris Murphy

Eveline Chao

An irreverent guide to colorful vernacular phrases and terms used by native Chinese speakers includes anecdotal communication advice for situations ranging from dating and business negotiations to traveling and Internet exchanges.

The Real Chinese You Were Never Taught in School

Niubi!

Gavin

Actually I was - but only because my lăoshī was a saucy linguistics grad who warned me not to practice the tricky phoneme 日 or 入 on the street, or ever to shout “3-8!”. 

Anyway this is funny and valuable for understanding the place’s (otherwise inaccessible) working-class or web or queer registers – and for generally not seeming like a prig. 

So: language is fossilised sociology; Chao excavates what would take us decades. She begins with slurs of all sorts, but doesn’t list any homophobia – claiming it isn’t a well-rooted hatred there (…). There’s loads and loads of ableism, though. Gets more serious as it goes, with whole chapters on gay culture and web ‘activism’ (恶搞 is ‘evildoings’, lulz). This turns up details like the infallibly hilarious “potato queen”. I also loved her decoding the ancient innuendoes: 云雨 (clouds and rain), 鱼水之欢 (the fish and the water, happy together), 余桃 (sharing peaches), or “playing the bamboo flute” or “bamboo harmonica”. 

(BTW, the title term is 牛屄 – ‘Cow-cunt’ – and means “Awesome!”. It is generally not included in mainstream Hanzi keyboard programs.)

Niubi! The Real Chinese You Were Never Taught in School

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