When ‘haha’ does not mean ‘hehe’
China’s young people have their own way of online chat; some fear it may affect language, but others embrace it.
WHAT happens when “hehe” means “you are stupid” and “haha” means “get lost”? And to give a treat is “vomiting blood”?
In China, the jiulinghou (literally Chinese born after 1990 who are in their 20s or younger), have their own way of speaking, especially online and over the ubiquitous WeChat social media platform.
It is no joke – one has to use at least six “ha”s to indicate that one is genuinely laughing, according to manuals floating around online deciphering such youth cyberspeak.
China’s cyberspace is known for its buzz and vibrancy, being the world’s largest with 751 million Internet users as of the end of June 2017, according to the China Internet Network Information Centre. Three in 10, or 220 million, are aged between 20 and 29.
In China, trendy Internet lingo and memes – a mixture of text and images and text – are hardly trivial. Instead, they have become a barometer of social sentiments, especially among young Chinese, who are more direct, open and individualistic than the older generation.
“If you look at the list of popular catchphrases in 2016, you will notice that the youngsters are feeling tired, anxious and self-deprecatory when faced with rapid developments in society and the mounting stress of life,” says new media expert Tian Li of Peking University.
With soaring property prices making it hard for the young to own homes and a growing wealth divide between the masses and the offspring of the rich (fu’erdai), many young Chinese readily embrace sayings that reflect their plight.
Some of these popular sayings include “ganjue shenti bei taokong” – feeling sapped of all energy – as well as “ni za bu shang tian” – literally, why don’t you go to the sky but really meaning fat hope.
As active Internet users, youngsters are the main drivers behind online catchphrases as well as emojis and memes.
The catchphrases and memes are inspired by hot button issues, quotes from notable people, animation, and TV and movies. Some are also created by online content producers.
These days, many young Chinese type messages using the formal language taught in school as well as cyber lingo, so much so they have to remember to code switch.
“When I talk to my close friends and family, I’m very free with using emojis and Internet memes. I will use whatever, whenever I like,” says postgraduate student Simon Li, 25.
“With my supervisor in the university, I won’t use any emoji or Internet memes at all. At most I’d use the sun emoji to show I’m enthusiastically accepting his views and comments,” he says.
Assoc Prof Tian says one trend is a move away from text-based catchphrases to visual images and animated gifs.
In a survey conducted in the first half of 2016 with nearly 320 students at Peking University, 75.6% said they “frequently use emojis”, and 15.4% said they will “use emoji in almost every sentence”. Less than 1% said they “never use any emoji”.
Assoc Prof Tian notes that such Internet symbols carry more information than the written word: “They help to speed up communication and can transmit more information with richer content in a shorter time.”
Singaporean Tan Bao Jia, 27, agrees that youngsters in China use a lot more emojis and memes in instant messaging – at least compared with her days as a Peking University undergraduate from 2009 to 2013.
Tan, who works at an international organisation based in Beijing, says: “Young people tend to be more direct in the way they speak, so symbols and pictures can often help soften the impact.”
Postgraduate student Huang Yonglin, 23, says the use of memes and emojis conveys friendliness: “Whatever it is, you should always respond with a couple of words or an Internet meme or an emoticon or a combination of these to show your friendliness.”
Huang is certainly a fan of Internet memes – she has 300 such graphic icons in her WeChat, the maximum number allowed. “So every time I want to add new ones, I’ve got to delete some others.”
A no-no is one-word responses: “I ban my boyfriend from sending me one-word responses. He must say ‘Oh, oh’ (‘en, en’) or ‘Yes, please’ (‘hao de’). It’s very hurtful to get a one-word response.”
Tan has also observed new expressions being coined at a faster pace.
“The use of ‘666’ to mean cool or impressive is quite bizarre to me. Such expressions seem to originate from the gaming community. And I think there’s more of them now.” In Chinese, six is liu, pronounced similarly as the word meaning smooth and also slang for “awesome”.
Given the wide use of these Internet catchphrases, some fear that they will adversely affect the proper use of the Chinese language, especially among young students.
In an interview with the Chinese Communist Party-run newspaper Guangming Daily last year, Yao Xishuang, a director with China’s Ministry of Education, said the phenomenon of Internet catchphrases is a double-edged sword: “While we recognise that they can enrich the development of (the Chinese) language, some of them can also be out of line and unhealthy. We should not completely outlaw them, but neither should we allow them a free rein.”
But not all worry about China’s colourful cyber youth lingo.
Some older folks enjoy expanding their repertoire of expressions.
Business executive Wang Yong, 42, collects Internet memes that his staff, most of whom are in their 20s, send him.
“They communicate in a very different way. For me, I’m more willing to accept new things, so I can adjust. So we won’t end up in a ‘ga liao’ situation,” he says, using a catchphrase which means having an awkward conversation.
As for Tan, who has moved to Beijing for only six weeks, she enjoys learning new phrases such as “You’re stabbing my heart, old friend” (“zha xin le, lao tie”). “Tie”, which means steel, is used to denote close buddies in the north-eastern dialect. She says: “This is a creative play on words, because language as a thing in itself is an expression of culture.” – The Straits Times/Asia News Network