不要脸
bùyàoliǎn
(
boo yaow lyinn
)
Shameless, without pride. Literally “doesn’t want face.” Face is a central concept in Chinese culture and entire volumes have been written in attempts to fully explain its nuances, but suffice to say that losing face is bad, giving face is good, and not wanting face is unspeakably shameful—thus saying that someone is
bùyàoliǎn
is far more insulting than the English word “shameless” and conveys a complex mix of being somehow subhuman, pathetic, and so lacking in self-respect that you would willingly do things that no one else would be caught dead doing. Also used by women to mean “disgusting” and sometimes with 臭
chòu
(
cho
, rhymes with “show”), which means “stinking,” in front to amplify it to 臭不要脸
chòu bùyào liǎn
, or “absolutely disgusting.” Another common way to amplify the expression is to say 死不要脸
sǐ bù yào liǎn
(
sih boo yow lyinn
), literally, “You don’t want face even when you die.”
去死
qù sǐ
(
chee sih
)
Go die.
走狗
zǒugǒu
(
dzoe go—
both syllables rhyme with “oh”)
Lackey, sycophant. Literally “running dog.” Said of a servile person with no morals who sucks up to more powerful people.
狗腿子
gǒutuǐzi
(
go tway dzz
) / 狗腿
gǒutuǐ
(
go tway
)
A variant of
zǒugǒu
(above). Literally “dog legs.” You may have heard of the term “capitalist running dog” or “imperialist running dog.” Mao Zedong used “dog legs” to refer to countries that were friendly with the United States.
滚
gǔn
(
gwen
) or 滚开
gǔnkāi
(
gwen kigh
) or 滚蛋
gǔndàn
(
gwen dun
)
Go away; get lost.
老不死的
lǎo bù sǐ de
(
laow boo sih duh
)
A rude term for an old person. Literally “old and not dead.”
老东西
lǎo dōngxi
(
laow dohng she
)
Old thing. A rude term for an old person.
老模砢磣眼
lǎo mó kē chěn yǎn
(
laow mwuh kuh chen yen
)
Literally “old wrinkle eyes.” An insulting term for someone old and ugly. Used in Beijing.
垃圾
lājī
(
lah gee
)
Literally “trash” but can be derogatorily said of people as well. In Taiwan pronounced
lè se
(
luh suh
).
畜生
chùshēng
(
choo shung
)
Animal, inhuman. Literally “born of an animal.” An extremely strong insult.
Slut and whore
In addition to the terms below, chapter 7, “Behaving Badly,” includes numerous words for “prostitute” that can also be used as strong insults.
骚货
sāohuò
(
saow hwuh—
sāo
rhymes with “cow”)
Slut (but can also be said of a man). Literally “lewd thing.”
贱货
jiànhuò
(
gin hwuh
)
Slut (but can also be said of a man). Literally “cheap thing.”
婊子
biǎozi
(
byow dz
)
Can literally mean “whore” but also used as a strong insult for a woman, equivalent to “bitch” or “whore.” Often strengthened to 臭婊子
chòu biǎozi
(
choe byow dz
), literally “stinking whore.”
狐狸精
húlijīng
(
hoo lee jing
)
Vixen, tart, slut. A woman who seduces other people’s husbands or boyfriends. Literally “fox-spirit,” referring to a creature from Chinese mythology. Slightly milder than the other terms for “slut.”
风骚
fēngsāo
(
fung sow
, the latter rhymes with “cow”)
Slutty. Literally “sexy and horny.”
公共汽车
gōnggòngqìchē
(
gohng gohng chee chuh
—the first two syllables sound like “gong” but with a long
o
, or
oh
, sound in the middle)
Slut, a woman who sleeps around. Literally “public bus,” as in “everyone has had a ride.” Similar to the English expression “the neighborhood bicycle.”
荡妇
dàngfù
(
dahng foo
)
Slut. Literally “lustful woman.”
残花败柳
cán huā bài liǔ
(
tsahn hwah buy lew
—
liǔ
rhymes with “pew”)
An insult meaning “old whore.” Literally “broken flower, lost willow.” Used mostly in northern China.
CHAPTER THREE
Swearing and Profanity
I
n English, we have plenty of ways to curse, but for the most part we tend to rely on a small and rather unvaried stable of fallback words. Similarly, the Chinese language allows you to spin an infinite number of creative, colorful curses, but you’re much more likely to stick with a basic like “fuck you.”
As in English, most Chinese swearing centers on fucking and its related accoutrements (the pussy and penis). And lots of insults involve stupidity or illegitimate birth or prostitution—nearly direct equivalents to “stupid cunt,” “fucking bastard,” “dirty whore,” “what a dick,” etc.
There are, however, a few major differences between the two languages. For one thing, China is officially an atheist country, so there is no real equivalent to Christian (or Muslim) blasphemy—nothing mirroring “Holy God!” or “Jesus Christ!” or “Damn you to hell!” Several terms in this chapter are translated as “damn” but really to indicate in English how strong—or in this context
not
strong—of an obscenity the word is. The concepts of heaven, hell, and devils, however, do exist in China, stemming from Buddhist and Taoist traditions, and thus you can call someone a devil, tell someone to go to hell, and launch a few other insults along those lines, but they are not very common and are considered old-fashioned and mild (the few examples of such insults worth mentioning appear in the previous chapter). Perhaps the closest thing to religious blasphemy in Chinese is the cursing of one’s ancestors, which is a serious insult as Chinese culture places a great deal of importance on blood ties, and ancestor worship is still practiced in some of the more traditional parts of the country.
Another way in which Chinese differs from English is that words relating to homosexuality (see chapter 6) are not particularly used as insults. This, again, may have something to do with the lack of religious dogma in China. While homosexuality is not exactly accepted in Chinese society, being gay does not carry the stigma of inherent moral “wrongness” that it often bears in Christian and Muslim societies. (Homosexuality can be considered bad in China for plenty of other reasons, but they mostly have to do with the importance that society places on having children.) Thus there is nothing in the Chinese vocabulary like “cock-sucker,” “faggot,” “bugger off,” “that’s so gay,” or “that sucks.”
One final mainstay of English-language swearing conspicuously absent from Chinese is “shit.” In a country that until recently was predominantly agricultural (meaning that manure was an important resource), where people talk openly at the dinner table about diarrhea, and where babies toddle about with their naked butts exposed in “split pants” (pants open at the back so that Junior can squat wherever he wants and take an impromptu dump on the street), it just isn’t very dirty to mention excrement or urine.
This is not to imply, however, that shit is entirely neutral in Chinese. Any mention of shit is vulgar, and thus certainly not fit for, say, the classroom or the office; it just isn’t used as an actual swear word like it is in English. You might use it when you’re purposely being gross, such as while joking around with family or good friends. But in those cases talking about shit would be just crude enough to be funny but not outright dirty. And as with any vulgar word, “shit” can also be used in an insulting way. One might say, for example, “That movie sucked so hard it made me want to shit,” or “The team played like shit.” For that reason, this chapter includes a few pejorative words and phrases involving shit, but you’d use them more to be bawdy than to actually swear. In fact, the very idea of using “shit” pejoratively is probably a Western import that was popularized through the subtitling of Western movies in Hong Kong.
The words and phrases in this chapter will give you all the vocabulary necessary to hold your own with even the most salty-tongued of Chinese. Many of these words can be used affectionately with close friends—in the way you might call a buddy “motherfucker” in English—but don’t forget that, no matter how close you think you are to someone, doing so can be hard to pull off when you don’t quite grasp all the nuances of the dialogue. And another note of caution on using strong language in Chinese: if you are a woman, using these words will, in some situations, cause outright shock. Chinese society right now is a bit like America in the fifties—there are certain things a girl just isn’t supposed to do. Feel free to let your verbosity run wild in the appropriate contexts (the proximity of chain-smoking, booze-swilling, young Chinese women should be a helpful clue). And of course there are times when shock might be the exact effect you’re going for (like, say, when some asshole tries to scam you on the street). But for the most part, in the eyes of most Chinese, any word that appears in this chapter is (along with the stronger insults from the previous chapter) something that should never escape a lady’s mouth.
Fuck-related profanity
肏
cào
, more commonly written 操
cāo
(both pronounced
tsow
)
Fuck. The character 肏 is visually quite graphic, as it is composed of 入
rù
(
roo
), meaning “enter,” and 肉
ròu
(
row
), meaning “meat.” 肏 is technically the correct character for “fuck,” but because it is not included in most computer or phone-character input systems, and because it’s just so uncomfortably dirty looking, most people write the homophonous 操 (which actually means “hold”). Thus I have written 操 for the rest of the terms in this chapter that use the word. But remember, technically, it should be 肏. (For those of you who pay attention to pinyin tones, I also render the syllable as fourth tone every time even though 操 is first tone, since that’s pretty much how it always comes out sounding. In general, though, with colloquial expressions like these you shouldn’t get too hung up on which tone is technically accurate since it’s not always fixed.)
我操
wŏ cào
(
wuh tsow
)
Fuck! An extremely common exclamation for all occasions—when you’re pissed off, impressed, amazed, or whatever. Literally, “I fuck.” (As a side note, many Chinese are amused when they hear English speakers say “what’s up?” or “wassup?” because it sounds to them like
wŏ cào
.) When saying “fuck” alone, it’s much more usual to say
wŏ cào
than to say just 操
cào
(
tsow
); northern Chinese, however, do often use
cào
alone as an interjection, especially between clauses. For example: “I had a really bad morning, fuck, had a car accident on my way to work.”
操你妈
cào nǐ mā
(
tsow nee ma
)
Fuck you! Literally, “Fuck your mother!” An extremely common obscenity.
操你大爷
cào nǐ dàye
(
tsow nee dah yeh
)
Fuck you! Literally, “Fuck your grandfather!” Northern and southern Chinese use different words for grandparents, so this one is used in northern China only. This is marginally less strong than
cào nǐ mā
(above) because it’s generally considered more offensive to curse someone’s female relatives than their male relatives. You can insert any relative into this construction; for example northern Chinese might say 操你奶奶
cào nǐ nǎinai
(
tsow nee nigh nigh
): literally, “Fuck your grandmother.” See the entries after 日
rì
(page 39) for the southern versions.
操你妈的屄
cào nǐ mā de bī
(
tsow nee ma duh bee
)
Fuck you! Literally, “Fuck your mother’s cunt,” and stronger than the two expressions above since you’re adding another obscene word,
bī
, or “pussy,” on top of
cào
.
操屄
càobī
(
tsow bee
)
Fuck. Can be exclaimed alone or used as an intensifier. Literally, “fuck pussy.”
操蛋
càodàn
(
tsow dahn
)
Literally “fuck egg.” (See the previous chapter for why eggs are used in insults.) Can be exclaimed alone, like “Fuck!” or “Oh fuck!” and can also be used as an adjective to mean that someone is bad or inept, as in 你真肏蛋
nǐ zhēn càodàn
(
nee jen tsow dahn
), which means “You’re a real stupid fuck.”
操行
càoxing
(
tsow sheeng
)
A dirty and insulting way to refer to someone’s appearance or behavior. Literally “fucking behavior” or something like “the behavior of a shitty person.” For example, 你看他那操行, 真受不了
nǐ kàn tā nà càoxíng, zhēn shòubùliao
(
nee kahn tah tsow sheeng, jen show boo liao
) means “Look at his shit behavior, it’s totally unacceptable.” The term can also be an adjective meaning “shameful” or “disgusting,” as in 你真操行
nǐ zhēn càoxíng
(
nee jen tsow sheeng
), or “You’re really fucking disgusting.”
操你八辈子祖宗!
Cào nǐ bā bèizi zǔzōng!
(
wuh tsow nee bah bay dz dzoo dzohng
)
Fuck eight generations of your ancestors! An extremely strong insult: stronger than
cào nǐ mā
(above). It’s always specifically eight or eighteen generations that are cursed in this insult. The number eight, 八
bā
(
bah
), is considered lucky in Chinese culture. Thus it is especially significant for misfortune to befall what should be a lucky number of generations.