Chinese language
2017-06-27 — 2026-02-14
Wherein chabuduo is noted, as explained by a Taiwanese flatmate; feedback loops are said to be severed from Guangdong factory belts, and lie-flat, rat-people, and involution terms are recorded.
A placeholder for useful snippets, should I ever learn any useful Mandarin Chinese.
1 差不多
This one was explained to me by my Taiwanese flatmate.
James Palmer, Chabuduo, writes:
My time in China has taught me the pleasure and value of craftsmanship, simply because it’s so rare. To see somebody doing a job well, not just for its own reward, but for the satisfaction of good work, thrills my heart; it doesn’t matter whether it’s cooking or candle-making or fixing a bike. […] Instead, the prevailing attitude is chabuduo, or ‘close enough’. It’s a phrase you’ll hear with grating regularity, one that speaks to a job 70 per cent done, a plan sketched out but never completed, a gauge unchecked or a socket put in the wrong size.
He frames this as a communication problem:
In most industries here, vital feedback loops are severed. To understand how to make things, you have to use them. Ford’s workers in the US drove their own cars, and Western builders dwelt, or hoped to dwell, in homes like the ones they made. But the migrants lining factory belts in Guangdong make knick-knacks for US households thousands of miles away.
2 Lying flat, Rat People 老鼠人 lǎo shǔ rén
Andrew Methven There’s a new phrase in China’s “lie flat” movement
3 Involution 内卷/Nèi juǎn
See Moloch.