Last week saw the rise of the “touch your belly button to see if you’re fat” meme on the Chinese internet, but that was last week. Now there’s a new phenomenon to hit the web: selfies of coins balanced on your collarbone.

As with many memes, there’s no clear point to it besides that everyone else is doing it. Even though the number of coins varies with each submission, this meme isn’t a competition to see who can fit the most coins since no one ever mentions the amount when they post them.

The meme first appeared as early as 2013. At the time, it was more of a competition since netizens tried to outdo each other by putting more and more outrageous things there, including durians. Another difference is that the 2013 meme wasn’t an exclusive exhibition for female users to show off their bare necks and plunging necklines.

But we’ll spare you the rhetoric and just show you the latest trend on the Chinese internet. Here are some examples:

All these ways of taking photographs employ the use of a prop that people can use to diffuse attention away from themselves lest they not be seen as being humble enough. As such, the collarbone selfie provides a convenient way to focus on a subject’s chest in a photo, much the same way the bellybutton test provided an acceptable way to focus on one’s bare midriff.

And because some people need a change from all these coins, here’s some non-coin selfies:

The post China’s Sexiest New Internet Meme: A Roll of Coins On Your Collarbone appeared first on The Nanfang.

Called the “belly button test”, or xuanfu (炫腹) in Chinese, it’s as simple to do as it is decisive in its evaluation: if you are able to reach behind your back with your arm and touch your belly button from the other side of your waist, this is supposed to prove that you are thin. If you can’t, this is supposed to reveal the harsh truth that you might need a bit more exercise.

It’s unclear by what scientific standard this is supposed to prove one’s ideal weight; but, media reports like the China Daily reference a mysterious foreign “US scientific researcher” who allegedly came up with the test.

Netizen response to this story has mostly been to answer that they have tried the test, with many admitting they fell beneath the standard. However, as pictures show, there are some that pass this “test”, and are ushering in what may be a new trend of selfies:

We’re left wondering if this is just another impossible beauty standard for women to meet, one that does not favor women with short limbs or limited flexibility. We just hope this doesn’t become a common beauty requirement, as have double eyelids, unbowed legs, or cleavage you can stuff a cell phone into.

The post New Chinese “Belly Button Test” Can Tell If You’re Fat appeared first on The Nanfang.

Statements made in the US by Republican presidential candidate Carly Fiorina that Americans shouldn’t fear competition with China because Chinese are “not innovative or imaginative” have unsurprisingly become a thing on the Chinese internet.

Chatting with political blog Caffeneinated Thoughts, Fiorina said:

I have been doing business in China for decades, and I will tell you that yeah, the Chinese can take a test, but what they can’t do is innovate. They are not terribly imaginative. They’re not entrepreneurial, they don’t innovate, that is why they are stealing our intellectual property.

Fiorina went on to add that teaching innovation, risk-taking, and imagination “are things that are distinctly American and we can’t lose them.”

Fiorina’s stance on China was previously spelled out in her book, Rising to the Challenge: My Leadership Journey:

Although the Chinese are a gifted people, innovation and entrepreneurship are not their strong suits. Their society, as well as their educational system, is too homogenized and controlled to encourage imagination and risk taking. Americans excel at such things , and we must continue to encourage them.

Chinese versions of the article published shortly afterward quickly attracted attention. So what did the home of Alibaba, Xiaomi and WeChat have to say? Actually, they were largely in agreement:

贫穷老百姓2015:
There’s not a single word she said that isn’t wrong. She’s completely right! What’s more, this is just what I was saying twelve years ago.

sleipnir71:
Creative thinking has most definitely been a problem for Chinese education. Some people are too sensitive in considering these words to be an insult.

laotie:
Fiorina is basically correct in saying that some parts of China’s systems are not conducive to technological innovation and development.

兰陵客微博:
Not only is [Fiorina] not insulting China, but she’s giving China a free lesson. ‘Chinese are good at taking tests, but don’t have any imagination, entrepreneurism, or innovation.’ This is a fact. In my opinion, we need to find the source of this problem, for only then can this situation improve.

用户5280479276:
Right on the money! What else are Chinese good at besides cloning?

斑马左使的祖宗:
[Directed at other commentators] The enemy all know your weakness, how can you fucking pretend you don’t know this?

fjfhuuje:
[Fiorina’s words] hit the nail on the head. How can these words be construed as an insult? There’s hope for those who change their ways if they don’t know enough, while the worst situation is someone who’s not willing to change if they need it. Writer [of the article], do you have a mental problem? Your mother is telling you to go home and take your medication.

liulele888:
Not a wrong word said.

凯林皇:
[Fiorina] is right. As well, this exactly the reason why we Chinese have never once had one of our scientists win the Nobel prize.

任静斋:
Even though there are some problems to Fiorina’s argument, what she said is still a fact: Although Chinese are talented, their senses of innovation and entrepreneurship are not their strengths. Their social and educational systems overzealously pursue the homogenous development of its students who are over-managed and not encouraged to take risks or use their imagination.

神奇的国度1999:
Even since taking tests in elementary schools, displaying any creativity results in a wrong answer. Why let us imagine in the first place?

林513707:
I don’t think that she’s insulting China, but that she’s pointing out where we can improve.

o土豪xo:
As the saying goes, ‘No culture, no worries, but a culture based on slavery is one of terrible crime and sin.’

蓝天锤18:
Hard to hear, but true!

A few spoke out against Fiorina, taking shots at her dubious track record as a CEO:

看的见听得清想不明白:
Since we Chinese lack imagination, who would have thought that one person would be able to so thoroughly topple two Fortune 500 companies – Compaq and Hewlett Packard –(from the inside)? (Who could have thought) these two world leaders in IT during the 90s would allow themselves to be utterly destroyed by this stupid woman? Who could have imagined someone with such poor leadership skills could run for the Presidency of the United States? This is all simply too much for the imagination of we Chinese. We welcome Sister Fiorina to come to China and apply to the administrative department for a position as a street cleaner!!!

无菌大王:
Heehee, what about those times when you steal and rob scientists from China?

无限轮回的马:
US citizens are rich in imagination? First in the world at ruining things is more like it.

A-郝维:
[Remember a thing called] the Four Great Inventions of Ancient China? American IQ remains very low.

Some netizens went so far as to explain why there may be a lack of imagination and innovation in China:

威士818:
If the people’s imagination and creativity isn’t restrained, then China will fall into chaos.

积德在家:
[Fiorina] is basically describing the image of our national civil servants.

天涯沦落人_
I don’t feel it’s about a lack of innovation so much as it is about not having a spirit of adventure, and being under the worship of money.

And proving that there’s no lack of sarcasm in China:

huangyi1125:
I downright refuse to accept (Fiorina’s argument)! If Chinese all lack the ability to be imaginative, then explain to me how the life-changing inventions of hair soy sauce, shoe capsules, melamine milk, and gutter oil – each one amazing enough to make gods and devils to weep in heaven and hell – were all invented by the hand of Chinese people? Once again, I express my downright refusal to accept these words!

积德在家:
We sincerely hope this kind of person will be elected as the next President of the United States.

The post Many Chinese Agree With Carly Fiorina’s Claim That China Can’t Innovate appeared first on The Nanfang.

Eighty members of a choir in Guizhou were singing a song when the floor underneath them suddenly gave way, plummeting them into a cavern below. The eerie video of the collapse has been circulating widely online in China.

Miraculously, only two people were seriously injured.

Here’s a video of the incident:

The post Stunning Video of a Stage Collapsing While 80 Choir Members Were Mid Song appeared first on The Nanfang.

A preliminary investigation determined the car probably slipped into the river because there had been a recent snowfall that made the banks of the river icy and slippery. Once the car was towed to shore, a rope was used to drag the bodies free. That’s when the rescuers discovered that the couple was locked in a lovers’ embrace, even after death. Only after a concerted effort were the victims separated from each other.

Drowning in a submerged car is a tragedy that often attracts a lot of attention in China. The story of a woman trapped in a car that accidentally drove into a canal last year was widely shared when it was revealed the victim’s last call was to her daughter, telling her she loved her.

The post Lovers Found Dead in Frozen Embrace in Icy Jilin River appeared first on The Nanfang.

There’s nothing quite as liberating as making a confession, and so when the Weibo account “Weibo Top Ranking Humor” asked netizens to contribute their most embarrassing experiences last October, people did so by the hundreds. They all eagerly posted their worst secrets, anonymously, to millions of people.

Some of these stories are fantastic, so we translated a few of the most popular ones. Chinese people like toilet humor though, and sometimes joke about bodily functions. So if you don’t want to read about gross things… well, you’ve been warned.

Here they are, Chinese netizens’ most embarrassing experiences revealed:

When I was a kid, I’d watch television with my father and mother. There was this time when the male and female actors started passionately kissing each other, which then turned to action on the bed and then rape. It got so that even the act of breathing was embarrassing.

Once I went swimming with my boyfriend, but I didn’t take care to properly put on the swimsuit because there was a string sticking out from the bottom. The boyfriend asked me what was going on, and I had to grit my teeth as I pulled it out and said, “(Just a) thread!”

I had gone up by myself to the roof of the restaurant to sunbathe one day. Because there was no one else around, I decided to do it in the nude. All of a sudden, I heard someone coming up, and so I quickly turned over on my front, and pulled a towel over my back. It was the manager of the restaurant, and he asked me to please go somewhere else to go sunbathe. At the time I was a bit annoyed, and so I asked him why. He said, “Because you’re lying directly on top of the restaurant’s sunroof…”

When making small talk to a really attractive guy, he made a joke that I laughed too hard at and made snort like a pig.

Went to use the bathroom at a friend’s house, and I couldn’t flush the toilet.

On a whim one day while I doing my business on a squat toilet, I decided to take a look at the next stall from underneath the partition. That moment would have to be the most embarrassing, most horrifying eye contact I have ever made in my life…

Whenever I got sick as a child, my mother would make me a cup of coffee to drink (to make me get well). She’d gently say, “Foreigners all love to drink this.” In my youth, I would always be afraid of coffee, and I could never understand why foreigners liked how it tasted. Now though, I’ve gone to every (coffee place): Milot, UBC, The Cat, and Starbucks. However, I’ve never been able to find the same flavor of drink as what my mother gave to me. That is, up until the day when I drank blue root extract and discovered that to love someone is to deceive them for their entire lives! 

When wearing a skirt, I tucked it into my underwear, and then without knowing it, went out for a walk.

One day I was on an elevator in a foreign country when suddenly my throat felt really itchy. So, I hoarked one up and let go a gob a phlegm. At the time, there were many laowai looking at me, I was so embarrassed… So my left brain starts spinning at 3,000 rpm until finally I turn to the people who have been watching me and loudly exclaim: “Fuck!!” 

Once, a classmate of mine was caught using a phone to look at a dirty website. (The teacher) asked him why these women weren’t wearing any clothes. He answered that his phone was too cheap and the internet speed too slow, so the clothes were still being downloaded! A few days later, (the teacher) gave the student an iPhone 4S…

When I leaned in for a kiss with my partner, she laughed and sprayed out snot that landed on my face. At the time, I said there was no problem when in fact I was disgusted beyond belief.

When I was a kid, I wasn’t very hygienic. When my stomach hurt and I went to the bathroom, out came a roundworm (parasite). When I first saw it, I was scared out of my mind. With one half of the roundworm still hanging out of my butt and too scared to pull up my trousers, I ran to find my mother at the mahjong parlor downstairs, who laughed so hard she couldn’t breathe. The roundworm was finally pulled out, but afterwards my neighbors kept calling me “Little Roundworm”.

Once when receiving a package, I discovered a hot guy was delivering it. After coming up, he directly asked me for my phone number. At the time, my face was flushed and my heart was pounding, but I still kept it together to ask if he would give me his QQ number first. He said, ahem, no, I am just trying to confirm if you are the true recipient of this package. Once it was in my hand, I retreated to the bedroom, leaving the delivery guy to laugh his head off.

When going with my current girlfriend to check into a hotel, I saw my ex-girlfriend servicing the front desk.

Caught by my dad while masturbating.

Just recently, when getting down and dirty with the boyfriend, I heard my mother fumbling with the key in the lock.

Whenever I catch a cold, I always pass gas and excrement slips out. If this happens to me when I am at home, it’s okay, my roommates understand, but sometimes this happens when I’m on the bus. I sometimes let one rip and excrement slips out when I’m sitting on a bus seat. Then everyone turns to look at me as I’m getting off the bus, giving me a strange look. And because it’s summertime, there’s a little residue left on the seat after I leave… (This is a guaranteed true story, it happened on board the #32 bus).

Sent a dirty picture to my family members (by mistake).

I took time off from school in my second year of high school to have allergy tests done. The nurse gave me two cups: one for a urine sample and one for a stool sample. I raced to the bathroom and, after spending a considerable amount of time doing it, was able to fill up a full cup of urine and a hefty stool and gave it to the nurse at the laboratory window. That’s when I saw my mother’s face and the face of the nurse go green, and when I finally figured it out that when providing a stool sample, you just have to give a small portion of it–not the whole thing.

I went with my girlfriend for a day in the countryside when all of a sudden she wasn’t careful and fell into a pigpen. Rescuers spent three hours trying to distinguish her from the pigs. 

I went into the wrong bathroom by mistake, and I saw a man squatting doing his business. Not only did I walk in at the exact time he was wiping his ass, but it was just as he held up the used toilet paper to his face and was smelling it. That’s when he saw me. I don’t want to remember this anymore…

Once while travelling, my stomach hurt and I wanted to go to the bathroom. My mother got up and told everyone on the bus, hold on Mr Bus Driver, my daughter wants to take a shit!! Take a shit!! Take a shit!! And I was just a precocious 18 year-old girl!! I lost so much face!!

I went with a friend to go to karaoke once. She had too much to drink, and put her head down in my lap. I had thought she had gone to sleep, and so I started to use two fingers to pick my nose. That’s when I suddenly heard her say in a calm voice, don’t pick your nose, it’s all falling on my face…

At your friend’s house taking a dump… but there’s no toilet paper… at your friend’s house taking a dump… there’s toilet paper, but no water to flush it down… at your friend’s house taking a dump… there’s toilet paper and water, but it won’t flush… at your friend’s house taking a dump… there’s toilet paper and water, and it flushes… but it floats back up to the surface anyways.

The post Chinese People Share Their Most Embarrassing Stories appeared first on The Nanfang.

The hottest new phrase on the Chinese internet is “duang”.

“Duang” is not a real Chinese word. It seems like it could be, though, since it has all the elements of being a Chinese character spelled out in pinyin. But even though it’s a made-up, “duang” has taken the Chinese internet by storm, practically overnight. It’s used all over Weibo by both private users and media outlets, has grown so big Xinhua has written about it and it already has its own Baidu Baike page (China’s equivalent of Wikipedia).

Unlike many internet memes, the origin of “duang” can be directly attributed to a single source. In 2004, Jackie Chan made a commercial for a hair shampoo in which he acted as its spokesperson. The commercial featured an interview with Chan in which he said the following:

I don’t want to say it, but when commercials are shot, they can add special effects afterwards, and the hair will be like “DUANG”! So rich! So shiny! So soft! (But if) I were to do that, the audience would scold me for not actually having this hair. …And after making the commercial, the hair is still mine. You don’t have to add any special effects.

A video was made that repurposed Chan’s words in the commercial to mean things he never said, all while emphasizing Chan’s use of “duang” to signify a sound effect used to present something in a positive light. It’s similar to the “sproing” sound a cartoon character makes from appearing so suddenly that he is still reverberating in place like a spring.

Jackie Chan is famous for saying things that eventually come back to haunt him, but he hasn’t experienced anything like this before. Chan sent out the following post on February 24:

However, I am still willing to go to eight different countries to shoot a movie. I will go to a barren, uninhabited desert to camp out, am willing to do whatever it takes to complete the (action) shot, will continue to bear all sorts of injuries, and why would I do this? It’s out of respect for all the fans who have given me a vote of confidence for several decades. Thank you all!

Remembering his words from the 2004 commercial, netizens responded by quoting him:

My shampoo is full of special effects, special effects, and special effects! Duang, duang, duang! Uncle Jackie, you’re so cute!

It looks like netizens are giving Chan a taste of his own medicine, but “duang” also appears to be part of a growing trend by Chinese netizens to enliven their online discourse with “Chinglish”. “Duang” follows other Chinglish phrases like “no zuo no die” or “zhuangability”, showing how netizens appropriate English (or, at least a basic understanding of it) as a way to create new words that isn’t possible with Chinese characters.

As such, there is no Chinese character for “duang”. It is spelled exclusively using English letters.

In this way, “duang” is used by netizens to mean “the improvement of something by adding special effects”, something that implies the subject in question is fake.

Still unclear? If the version on the right is “duang”, then the version on the left is untouched by any special effects:

Here’s the viral video that makes fun of Chan’s commercial:

Jackie Chan is an international celebrity who has had other internet memes made about him. It’s just surprising to see that this newest meme in China is very similar to the one that Westerners have been enjoying for years.

The post “Duang” is Everywhere on the Chinese Internets, Here’s What It Means appeared first on The Nanfang.

A surveillance video has captured amazing footage of a three-year old toddler falling from a third-story apartment and bouncing off a parked car before hitting the ground, after which the child staggered to his feet and walked away.

It happened on February 12 in Kunming, Yunnan while the child was at home. His grandparents were there at the time, but they were making dinner. The toddler apparently went to the bathroom and fell out of the window by accident.

A witness found the dazed child and returned him to his family. Doctors said he only suffered minor injuries from the fall.

Here’s the video:

Children falling from open windows is a regularly reported in China. Parents have been reminded to protect their priceless treasures from disappearing by keeping their windows closed.

Related:

• 3 Year-Old Guangzhou Girl Survives 7 Story Plunge; First Words: “It Hurts, Mama”
• Child falls from 8th-storey balcony in Zhuhai, calmly gets in elevator and goes back upstairs
• AMAZING VIDEO: This is How You Catch a Falling Baby [UPDATED]
• Hero of dangling Guangzhou girl identified
• Hero climbs down six-story building on bedsheet to save child dangling by head

The post Toddler Survives Three-Story Tumble onto Parked Car appeared first on The Nanfang.

While China’s president Xi Jinping was paying a visit to Ya’nan, the former revolutionary base of the Communist Party and where Xi spent much of his youth, his American counterpart was charming Chinese audiences with a Taylor Swift parody and selfies.

Baracksdubs, a professional soundbite team, cut and pasted sound bites of Obama’s speeches to create a video where he appears to be singing Taylor Swift’s hit song, “Shake It Off”. The video subsequently went viral on Chinese social media and video sharing websites.

By the end of the day, the phrase “Obama Shake It Off” had been searched close to 60,ooo times on Sina Weibo. At the same time, images of Obama taking selfies with a selfie stick, and making faces in front of mirror in the White House, began to gain traction online.

Chinese newspaper Xinmin posted all of the GIF images and wrote on its Weibo account, “February 15 is the deadline for enrolling in Obamacare. In order to attract more young voters to purchase healthcare, Obama took a selfie for promotion.”

Many netizens were impressed by Obama’s casual and approachable demeanour in the images. One Weibo user named 逝者如斯随风舞 wrote, “Other people’s presidents are an ordinary human beings, while ours is seen as a god.”

Another user called yixiu_lai wrote sarcastically, “The president who doesn’t visit Yan’an during Chinese Spring Festival is not a good president.”

The post Obama’s “Shake It Off” and Selfies Charm Chinese Audiences appeared first on The Nanfang.

One such English examination was leaked online, and people were shocked at how hard it was. The test is from the Nanjing Foreign Language School, and many felt the extensive English section was too difficult to complete, even for adults. Do you have what it takes to get into the Nanjing Foreign Language School? Try out the following questions:

Running Man was one of the most popular entertainment programs in 2014. It passes a spirit as a way of life and concept of ___.

A: kind   B: glad   C: joy   D: brave

If you chose “C”, congratulations, you chose the right answer, being the only noun available, whereas the others are adjectives. All the same, we don’t know what a “concept of joy” is, nor specifically what “a spirit as a way of life” means.

The next exam question is based on the Chinese song Love My China, so if you know the lyrics, you’ll have no problem filling in the blanks:

56 constellations and 56 flowers
56 brothers and sisters are a f___
56 k__ of languages merged into one w__
Love China, love China, love China
Love China
take new s__
Love China
Construct our c__
Love China
China is bright and brave
Love China

It may be more catchy in Chinese, but the missing words are still the same as the original: “family”, “kinds”, “word”, “steps”, and “country”.

If that question seemed difficult because it required a knowledge of two cultures, the next one may be next to impossible:

According to the information provided, please fill in the corresponding chengyu/Chinese idiom (in Chinese).

Eg: Confucius, cooked cow leather, bamboo sheet        韦编三绝 (wéibiānsānjué)

1. Kuang Heng, wall, light
2. Su Qin and Sunjin, hair, leg
3. cock, get up, sword

The clues provided in the question are details in the story that serves as the backdrop to the idiom. In the story, Confucius is said to be so studious that he broke the leather binding (cooked cow leather) of the bamboo scroll (bamboo sheet) three times from reading it so often, resulting in a idiom that means “study diligently”. Got it?

#1 is a idiom about Kuang Heng, a historical character said to be so studious that he would poke a hole in the wall so that he could “borrow” the light shining from his neighbor’s house in order to keep reading. The answer is 凿壁偷光 (záobìtōuguāng), an idiom that means “studious” and has a literal meaning of “bore a hole in the wall to steal light”.

#2 is about two other historical characters also revered for their study habits. Su Qin tied his hair to the rafters so that he would wake up whenever he nodded off, while Sunjin would use an awl (a long pointy spike) and stick it into his own leg so the pain would keep him awake, allowing them both to continue studying into the night. This gives us 悬梁刺股 (xuánliángcìgǔ), an idiom that means “to be painstaking in one’s study”, which literally tarnslates to “hang from the rafters and stab your leg”.

#3 isn’t about any specific historical character, but describes a story in which someone gets up at the crack of dawn upon hearing the rooster crow in order to practice martial arts using a sword. 闻鸡起舞 (wénjīqǐwǔ) means to be “diligent in one’s studies” and literally means “go dancing upon hearing the rooster”.

Want to test yourself further? Check out the rest of the exam questions below:

The post The English Test for Chinese Middle School Students: Could You Do It? appeared first on The Nanfang.