Monday Comedy: Read Chinese Easy

Flowers

Flowers are a universally recognized way of expressing love around the world, but in China they can have a double meaning that is based on the number of flowers given. As I have posted before, numbers have great meaning in Chinese culture. Any amount sends a positive message, but a particular number of flowers can be used to send a hidden one.

1 Flower: "I love you and only you", "You are the only one for me"

2 Flowers: "I just think of you and me", "Its just you and me"

3 Flowers: A simple "I love you"

4 Flowers: "I promise you love" As I said before, 4 is an unlucky number for Chinese, so clarify in a card or avoid using this amount.

5 Flowers: "I have no regrets being with you"

6 Flowers: "I hope everything goes well for you"

7 Flowers: "I feel happy with you"

8 Flowers: "Im sorry, please forgive me" Used for saying you're sorry.

9 Flowers: "I will love you forever without regret"

10 Flowers: "You are the perfect lover"

11 Flowers: "I will love you for the rest of my life", "Your happiness is my only priority"

12 Flowers: "Our souls are forever connected"

13 Flowers: "You have a secret admirer"

15 Flowers: "Im sorry" Same as 8.

17 Flowers: "Lets leave each other on good terms" Used for breaking up.

18 Flowers: "I have a sincere heart"

19 Flowers: "Im looking forward to spending time with you"

20 Flowers: "Forever loving you with an unchanging heart"

21 Flowers: "You are my love"

22 Flowers: "Lets be in love to no end"

24 Flowers: "I miss you, I am always thinking about you"

25 Flowers: "Good Luck"

30 Flowers: "Our love goes beyond words"

33 Flowers: "I will love you for many years to come"

36 Flowers: "My heart belongs to you"

44 Flowers: "I promise you my steady love"

50 Flowers: Same as 5.

55 Flowers: Also the same as 5.

56 Flowers: "My love"

60 Flowers: "May our love be strong and stable"

66 Flowers: "Our love is true and steady"

77 Flowers: "Destiny brought us together"

88 Flowers: "I want to make it up to you" Used to say sorry.

99 Flowers: "I want to be with you forever"

100 Flowers: "Im in love with you 100%"

101 Flowers: "You are my only love"

108 Flowers: "Will you marry me?"

123 Flowers: "Let us enjoy freedom and love"

144 Flowers: "I love you every day, of every month, of every year, of every century"

365 Flowers: " I think of you every day", "I love you everyday of the year"

999 Flowers: "Our love is infinite"

1001 Flowers: "Faithful love forever"

10,000 Flowers: "May our love last for 10,000 years" 10,000 essentially means forever in East Asian cultures. Giving 10,000 flowers is the ultimate expression of compassionate love in Chinese culture. If you can afford it, no Chinese girl will turn you down. (Except for this guy)


Color is also has double meaning in flowers. Red is your best bet, so is pink, yellow is also good, avoid white as it symbolizes death.

Happy Valentines Day

Son of a......!

Just while making some headway about wedding extortion in planting seeds of doubt into the minds of the givers I get hammered by something else. Damn it it seems I simply cannot win!

I received a basket of red eggs which made me break out in a cold sweat, this is for two reasons:

SOME Chinese families continue the tradition whereby until you are 18 you are give a number of dyed red eggs to eat in ONE sitting. The problem is my family were often NOT coordinated. Therefore through my teens I would be presented with baskets of eggs. To be eaten in one sitting. My dad would prep a basket of eggs dyed red. He would then stand over me and watch me eat them and refuse to leave until I had done so. Then my mum would come along later on in the day and also have a basket of eggs. Then my grand parents on both sides would come along and bring a basket of eggs. (My family have poor communication btw). End of a birthday I'd be egged out to hell. My 17th which was the last time this occured was horrible simply horrible the number of eggs. They would also withhold their Lai See unless I ate them all too. I don't really like hard boiled eggs any more these days because of this. My cousins and their friends were all put through such trials, though they families obviously had better coordination than mine.

Sort of like the cool hand Luke scene



But I received a basket of red eggs, which signifies that a child has been born, which signifies hey CG you've been invited to a party! But because you're only supposed to get the basket of eggs (dyed red) there is nowhere to put bring all yer money type invitation/extortion scheme. Also having a baby is somewhat more involving that a sham wedding. But again acquaintances are calling me already asking how much we should bring in money terms. Luckily everybody else is as piss poor as me and looks like it's not going to be more than £20.


Anyway tradition dictates it's held a lunar month after the birth, due to two things. Extremely high infant mortality. One month after the birth equates to a good chance of survival. Also same thing for the mother, in that birthing is undoubtedly painful. Thus the month is to allow for recuperation. Then again my parent's generation were made of sterner stuff they were mostly nuts. TGC's mum was having contractions and she had to finish off the shift before going to the hospital. My dad is equally nuts when his apendix ruptured or something and he finished his shift before going to get himself seen to.

Though admittedly this is not just restricted to Chinese people. My mate Tariq from Kashmir was stabbed in a shop robbery, he too had to finish his shift close up and clean up before getting himself sewn back up. Silly sod was really pale and ill looking the next day.

Oppa but backwards sorta

Dear Chinese guy

My Chinese boyfriend often calls me a Xiao Yah Tow. What does this mean? Is it good or is it bad? Cuz when I ask him he does not want to tell me and grins. His family don't want to tell me either. I have to know!

Karen


Dear Karen

It depends on your sensibilities and age tbh. For example my mates call me a Bad MoFO sometimes for doing things and I am not really insulted. My co workers who are women tend to absolutely resent being given soft toys as gifts as it is treating them as if they are children. However for some comedy you can see the Militant Black guy who purposely takes offence at everything. (it is a comedy balls of steel)









But on with the question:

小丫头 (xiǎo yā tóu) = cute girl

Split though

小 (xiǎo) = little
丫头 (yā tóu) = servant girl / maid

Thus although his is generalising here, it is generally a sort of nickname to imply affection. There are much worse things to be called tbh. I always find the Y a bit funny though as I see it as a Y instead of a 丫. But then this is normal. British infantry in Normandy for instance mis read Ypres (Yeep) as Wipers.

HTH

TCG

Year of the dog

Hello - I Love your site! I was in China last month for my first visit. While there, I had a jade stamper made for my Aunt and Uncle who are celebrating their 40th anniversary this December. They were married in 1970, the Year of the Dog and the stamp is shaped in a dog. I'm putting together their package to send to them and I would like to include a paper explaining about marriages in the Year of the Dog - or some type of significance of the dog and that year for
marriage. I've looked online and can only seem to find explanations of Chinese astrology as it pertains to the year of a person's birth. Can you offer some enlightenment on marriages in the year of the dog?


Amy from Virginia


Um, to my knowledge which is very limited when it comes to Astrology there isn't anything that special about it. Admittedly I am no expert on astrology as I said above. Nor do I take much interest in it. Far too many people asking me while working in hot food. I went and asked my dad about it and he didn't know anything special about getting married in a particular year.

Although it probably isn't exactly what you want, dates and compatability etc are much more to do with their individual birth dates and or the actual date that they married. Dates which have 8s in them are auspicious and good days to marry.

As an alternative option maybe you can look up the date here and try to figure something out but Chinese astrology is something I know little about.

Sorry

RMB, Yuan and Kwai?

Is RMB and Yuan the same thing? Also what is it about Kwai? When I was in China people seemed to talk about these terms interchangably.

No name




Dear confused

RMB Yuan and even sometimes the Yen sign ¥ are all Chinese money.

RMB is the actual currency and it is the short form of Ren Min Bi. Money of the people, or people's money however you want it. This is the defacto currency of China, RMB are proxy US$ btw due to the peg against the US$.

A or a unit of Yuan is the base units for RMB - just as Dollar in USD. This is the currency system in China:

分 Fen cent (pennies for my British readers)

圆 Yuan dollar

So Yuan and RMB is not always the same (as Yuan is just one of the currency units in RMB), but they can often be used interchangeably. 2500 RMB and 2500 Yuan is exactly the same amount of money.

What confuses the issue is some people will say Kwai, which means a unit of money, which is again inter changeable with RMB and Yuan. This isn't really different to other countries tbh. In that the UK currency is Sterling, which is divided into pounds and pennies. It used to be divided into more when we had a base 12 currency crowns, half crowns, sovereigns. But today we talk about British money in the form of pounds, pahnd (for Londoners), quids, somolians, clams, scores, fivers, tenners, bob, cheese etc. And China is no different. My dad being wealthier than myself talks about bits of water. Which are units of 100 of where ever he happens to be. He was pretty impressed when he was in Korea when he was give 10000KRW spending money. Which happened to be £2.

Mast nailing and stuff

Sorry for the general absence, but I've been generally doing things for family you know how it is, it escalates into stuff like this. And also the girlie flew in for a few days for some reason and when there is a choice between blog and boob, I'll go for the boob each time.

Anyway.

Just to nail my colours to the mast as I make provokative comments on other blogs.. I don't support the CCP, I don't support the UK government or ANY government. Therefore when you say my country or my government I give no endorsement to any of them. This is because all governments are non consentual and voting I believe is a sham. I believe voting is an activism sponge which prevents real change from happening. You know how we used to do it the old way, march on the capital and bring lots of rope to hang the people in power. The UK hasn't had a nice bloody revolution in ages and probably needs one as our leaders are extremely corrupt.

You know the old quote from Jefferson (the American founding forefathers were smart cookies in many respects)

The tree of liberty must be refreshed from time to time with the blood of patriots and tyrants.
-Thomas Jefferson

Pre and post election very little changes all that has changed is the puppet at the top is different. The things which keep things ticking over stay the same, and you are still in hock to the government. (Fiat money is the clue) Painting a government blue or red changes nothing.

Face

Face is an important part of Chinese society. The concept of Face is much simpler than it is described. Face is your reputation, how others see you as a person. Westerners tend to care little about Face in the Chinese sense. We blab about everything we do on facebook, blogs, the twitters etc and never give a damn even if its something mildly inappropriate or embarrassing. We admit our wrong doings and mistakes. For example George “Dubya” Bush publicly admitted the he had trouble with alcohol. No Chinese person would ever dare do this, as it would bring shame upon him and cause him lose face. To the Chinese, Face is like blood, it is precious and very bad to lose. Chinese people will go to great lengths to preserve face and keep the skeletons in their closet in their closet. People will go to great lengths to cover up their flaws and mistakes from the public. This may be part of the reason Asians always aim to be the best and to outperform their peers, they want to look as flawless as possible. Having a big flaw (like being terrible at math) shows that you lack face. Saying that someone has no face is a great insult. For example, you should never openly blame a Chinese person for a mistake. By attributing blame to that person, they lose face because you are saying that the mistake was made due to a flaw that person has, and losing face is a great disgrace. Face can also be treated as a commodity that can be given and earned. For example, say a father works at the post office, and his son wants a job there, the father will put in a good word for his son the office. By doing this, the father has given the son face by giving him a good reputation there even before he starts working. Face can also be salvaged before it is lost. For example, a president can make a remark that would cause him to lose face, but his spokesperson steps in and tries to justify the presidents statement. The spokesperson just salvaged the presidents face.

All in all, you just have to remember that Face = Reputation. You should also be cautious as you may cause a Chinese person to lose face without even knowing it. In 2006 when Hu Jintao visited the White House, Dubya tugged on Hu’s suit because he walked off the wrong side of the podium after a press conference. This was a source of great humiliation and loss of face for Hu, as it appeared as if Hu was a child that needed to be pulled to go to the right place. As a result, the Chinese media covered it up in order to preserve the presidents face.

Colors in Chinese Culture

Colors also carry much superstition in China. The meaning of certain colors is completely different from their western interpretations.

 

Red (紅 hóng)

Red is the cultural color of the Chinese people. It symbolises fire, vitality, happiness and celebration. It can be seen everywhere during Chinese New Year and other important holidays

 

Yellow (黃 huáng)

Yellow is the color of beauty and nobility. I suppose this another instance of Sino-ethnocentrism, calling themselves a “yellow people” is like calling themselves beautiful. Yellow is a color of power and wealth because it is the color of gold, the Emperors throne was often decorated with yellow.

 

Green (綠 lǜ)

Green is the color of health, well being, springtime and harmony. Not too different from the west.

 

Blue (藍 lán)

Blue is a symbol of immortality or long life.

Black (黑 hēi)

Black in Chinese culture is very odd. In the west, black is associated with evil, darkness, and depression. But in China it is actually associated with water and heaven. In the I Ching, water corresponds with the color black.

Pink (粉紅 Fěnhóng) or just (粉 Fěn)

The characters literally mean “powder red”. Pink is not a gendered color in China. Pink is seen as a shade of red, which as stated above, is a good color.

White (白 Bái)
White is the color of death and mourning. Referring the paleness of a dead body. In contrast to the west were it is seen as a color of purity and innocence. Never I repeat NEVER wear white in China. White is only to be exhibited during a funeral and when mourning the dead.


In general, brighter colors are usually good (except for white). Darker colors tend to be neutral to negative in meaning.                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                          

Yeet hey 熱氣

Hello

Just thought I'd ask, What exactly is YEET HAY in English and How come it is only Chinese people who get it? Don't White people get it also or do they just not realize when they are ?

And what can you do if you do feel Yeet Hay

Ricky Wu


Dear Ricky

Uh oh, I was wondering when this would come up. Yeet Hey (熱氣) is a highly contentious issue which Chinese parents will tell their children constantly about. Strangely it only affects Chinese people. Caucasians, Mexicans, black people and everybody in between no such thing. Apparently there is Yin and Yang in food meaning anything which is hot is bad for you, i.e. anything baked fried, toasted, in fact anything slightly tasty or spicy. Koreans of both varieties north and South appear to be immune to it though for some strange reason.

A KFC Bucket of Chicken = Yeet hey and bad for you even if you opt for the non spicy variations

Did I say Spicy? Strangely enough Koreans AFAIK don't suffer from this and everything they eat is like eating lava.

My trek to Seoul last year after riding around Guri wondering where the centre of Seoul was I stopped exhausted and found a stand selling Tteokbokki. Which looked ok, one bite and it was like an a ball of fire in my gob. Seeing as everybody was eating it fine and not wanting to look like a pussy I ate another piece which was hotter than the first piece. I slowly put it down and had a sip of the soup, which was even hotter and I sort of lost it to the heat.

Korean Tteokbokki, Yeet Hey like nothing else, otherwords known as fire on a plate

At which the old Korean woman behind the stand crapped her pants laughing at me...(then again you can tell I am not Korean due to the way I had a massive beard. I have NEVER seen a Korean person with a beard ever).

Firey Korean burgers

Ok so I go get a hamburger a Bulgogi (beef) burger from the ubiquitous family mart in Seoul and one bite and again I am eating molten lava as the inside is filled with spicy green paste (maybe Wasabi).... Slightly annoyed now and still hungry as the Tteokbokki wasn't finished, nor was the burger. I go out yet again for something safe, some 700krw cup noodles (not as bad as the 300krw noodles which shorten your life significantly) and again I am eating lava. I go back to my hotel room and throw up.

Korean Biological weapons in case the PLA ever attacks

When Park took me out to dinner we again ate molten lava. This happened throughout my Korean experience, Kimichi, Hanjeongsiketc. I found I could only eat Bimibap. Though this was more to do with the fact of walking into restuarants seeing the menu was completely written in Korean and realising I only knew bulgogi and Bimibap.

While Kim, Kim, Kim, Kim and Park in the hostel would continuously eat fiery spicy things yet exhibit no ill effects. Unlike myself, must be a different Korean evolutionary path that they can eat fire.

Young the girlie I became acquainted with in Seoul and I really do mean acquaintance (as she is now apparently a famous actress in Korea now). We'd go out regularly to Hongdae and she would eat her weight in fried foods and spicy foods which would send me thermonuclear just looking at it. And yet she suffered not ill effects at all and kept her ghostly pale skin.....Oddly she never got fat either, while my arrival in Korea was 7stn I left Korea considerably fatter at 7.5stone from the illnesses I got in Siberia. I think it must have been the cookies you can buy in Family Mart everywhere as the spiciness upset my stomach badly and I would throw up daily.

I bet this sauce would sell well in S Korea.

However this has often led to a great feeling of conspiracy within the Chinese youth in that coincidentally everything which is Yeet Hey always happens to be tasty. While everything which is non tasty is non Yeet Hey. I lived through years of not being able to eat good stuff, Pizza? Pies? Bacon sandwiches, even toast, pop tarts, chocolate, crisps, even frigging cornflakes ALL forbidden.... damnit my youth was just eating boring things, there sure was a hell of a lot of rice. Though curiously I drink loads of milk too most Sinotypes can't drink milk.

I discovered later on it IS (sometimes) used as a controlling mechanism by Chinese parents to control what their children eat as with the last post about Feng Shui the advice is completely inconsistent. Anything they don't like the look of is instantly labelled Yeet hay... which makes children think what the fuck? I'm getting old and my dad still pesters me about this.

But anyway where was I before I got completely sidetracked in my little anecdote.

Yeet Hey is used in Chinese medicine as a state of being too hot. As an antithesis you can also be too cold, wet or dry too. yeet Hey is bought on by eating lots of hot foods, spices and or lack of sleep can all imbalance the body and affect the Qi in the body. Symptoms of uber Yeet Hey are sore throats, break outs of zits big juicy ones which lurk under the skin. Ulcers, nose bleeds and when you take a whizz golden showers or it smells bad (hold on does piss ever smell good?) It varies from person to person. Some people are much more vulnerable than others. While others are completely invulnerable to it as per the Koreans as described above.

So what's the cure doc? Chinese mythology and medicine is dominated by the idea of balance so the cure is to re balance the imbalance. When you are too hot you eat or drink something cold. Common cures as many children of Chinese migrants will attest to are cool drinks:

• leurng chahs" (literally meaning "cool teas") such as Chrysanthemum tea,
• yah-sei mei" (24-flavor tea)
• gum mo cha" (influenza tea).
• green bean soup,
• sour plum soup
• beer ~ yes BEER which is why caucasian people don't suffer from Yeet Hey at all!
• A good night's sleep also goes a long way in helping someone who is yeet hay.

24 flavor tea is this black paste type stuff which tastes utterly foul, kind of like your 8th beer it tastes incredibly bitter but is supposed to make you better.

24 flavor tea (which tastes as good as it looks) = good and Leung

In a nut shell the basic theory is that you should eat enough hot and cold things to balance out the yin and yang elements of your diet else your health will suffer. The problem is there are severe inconsistencies in this. Lychee's for instance are considered to be Yeet Hey, when they are a watery fruit (I hate the damned things though). While other watery fruit like melons, grapes oranges ya pears etc are considered to be cooling (Leung). Which is terribly confusing especially as people give conflicting advice.

Another inconsistency is that curiously how come you can't have too much Yang yet at the same time can have too much Yin? Or the other way round. My dad when he is around will regularly point out things are too Yeet Hey, but at the same time doesn't tend to point out too much cold in my diet aside from beer.

However I think the best way to define what this is though is simply this:

To eat and drink things in moderation, as excess of anything is bad....




Koreans excepted as they sure do like they spicy food oh and Soju. The Kims and Park drank that stuff like water....

Though I'm sure Korean folks have their own local things too, as I remember being fed full boned ginger chicken by Young one day. Also that Kimichi has um issues.

Still everything causes cancer these days so what's new?

Feng Shui

Dear TCG,

What is Feng Shui and how does it work?

Kevin B




Dear Kevin

Feng Shui

Is a form of mysticism which some people believe in and some people don't.

Essentially the gib is supposed to be that you can improve energy flow of Chi by moving things around, the critical thing is have no sharp objects or edges pointing at you like ceiling lights and stuff like that. I mean it is just common sense right? In your car you have a steering wheel which does not have a sharp spike sticking out of it right?

Though you know this would increase road safety so much, and it'd stop all my friends being killed while biking.

A really bad Feng Shui type of bed to have. Even if it is on sale.

However TCG's dad puts it much better, if it looks neat and tidy to the eye then it has good Fung Shui. I.e. if your home doesn't look like level 7 out of contra (in the UK we call this probotechor)



My personal belief is that it is semi psychosomatic. The mind being the most powerful organ in the body can change things psychologically.

It is one of those things people consult JUST in case. You know the kind, in the UK we've had loads of fuel shortages due to protesters blockading the refineries. You always get some smart arse who says we are all suckers for panic buying petrol.. When he himself gets home he goes and buys some petrol JUST in case he needs it. Or the people who don't believe in bad luck yet refuse to walk under ladders or take a baseball bat to a mirror.

Which is why it still has a place in modern day Chinese life. People consult such things just in case, as doing it and practicing it costs relatively little compared to the negative outcomes which can occur. In ALL Chinese villages you'll have a second hand tale about somebody not consulting a local shyster the feng Shui man and falling on hard luck.

Though Chinese people can be somewhat gullible, for instance there was a Taoist master who performed a complex ritual for a HK model to change her luck. Which involved sex some people have called fuckshui quite recently a few people in HK being tricked into buying perpetual motion machines. However considering 419 scams are still landing in my email boxes everyday there is a sucker born everyday.

Big buildings and such like also have such a master come take a look and give advice. I mean you're going to give him $2000HK or so, when your building is going to cost $100 million HK the $2000 is insignificant.

Hey man this building's gonna cost us $1billion US$, think we should pay off this bloke claiming to be a Feng Shui master his $10000 fee?


Ordinary people see this happening and copy them. As they must have done something right to become wealthy.

Follow the more successful thief and steal his ideas. - "The Book of Cataclysm"

On the other hand people can use it to extort the government too! In Hong Kong villages on Feng Shui grounds denied the HK government permission to build a radar system for HKG airport. What they really meant is we want bigger compensation packages for having a big radar system in our village. The HK government told them to get lost and decided to cancel it till 2015.


Though this is somewhat at odds with the generally held idea that in some areas of China that fortune and luck are what matter above hard work, qualifications and talent (TCG is writing a book in collaboration with others about this keep your eyes peeled).

What some clever so and so in the 1990s thought of was applying this to western cultures. In that hey look those Chinese folks tend to live longer than us. It must be something they do (forgetting stuff like diet, work and psychological support though in truth I think this generation of Chinese ants are going to die much younger than their parents and grandparents). And they built a whole industry around it selling books, advice etc.

In the UK such people are considered to be entertainers the UK government recognises them as entertainers because they need to buy entertainment permits before being allowed to 'practice'.

All of this changed a small superstition in Chinese society into a whole industry which gives out inconsistent advice and has no industry standards. Penn and Teller exposed this when they asked several people who were said to be masters and all of them gave inconsistent advice.

Therefore to me it is a mere curiosity and I take it like my dad says, as long as it looks neat to the eye it is good. Which works for me just find since I live like a bum and live under a big stack of papers everywhere for the work I do. But because there are no sharp edges it's A-OK!

Bonza!

Racist tooth paste?

Dear TCG

I heard that in China there is a racist tooth paste brand, can you confirm. [heavily edited due to excessive ranting, run on sentences and a hundred other things too]

Regards

Ricardo

Dear Ricardo

You are semi right there is or was a tooth paste which might have triggered racist connotations, it was the darlie toothpaste brand. A Taiwanese companie made a toothpaste called Darkie. Notice the change over time eh?

They marketed it as such in that due to the contrast of the dark skin of black people when they smiled their teeth looked whiter than white this was in the days of old school advertising before photoshop a insidious tool allowing people to manipulate images to the way they wanted them to look (i.e. unreal). Hell even website designers use such colour contrast techniques.

Anyway the company was bought out by Colgate in 1985 and only bothered to change this in 1990 as per this video:



This looks bad right? Well it isn't in that Darkie in Chinese is

黑人牙膏

黑=Black

人=person/human

牙=Tooth/teeth

膏=paste/gel

Therefore there is no racism behind this, unlike say


The qualifier in this is the absence of 死 'si' literally death. Which you put in front of words such as Laowai, Gweilo etc and it becomes somewhat insulting.

Ahem this isn't to say China isn't racist far from it, but this is a post for another time.

TCG

Washing

Dear Chinese Guy.

I am Chinese myself and I watched a Chinese film The Knight of Gamblers, during a scene the hero is hypnotised by the special skill of Stephen Chow, and he imagines that he is seducing his female body guard 9 dragons. During the sequence she says "Sai bak bak," Which to my Chinese means to wash white white. While when after going to the gym and smelling awful my dad will tell me to "Chueng Leung," to wash ~ relieve.

What is the difference between these two expressions?

Gary Wong





Dear Gary

The film you are talking about is Knight of Gamblers starring Stephen Chow周星馳



You are correct about this in that there are two ways to say have a wash as follows:

洗白 白xi bai bai places the emphasis on washing something very clean, thus the repetition of the word( 白)bai ~ i.e wash white white.

OTOH we have an often used expression which your dad uses when he tells you that you stink and should go for a wash.

沖涼 chong liang means to 'take a shower' to cool off or refresh yourself
沖 Rinse
涼 Relieve.


The difference is 洗白 白is sort of a cuter more infantile version of 沖涼 , some girls and women who are grown up will say this to pretend to be cuter than they really are. This works for a cute girl it may not work for a not so cute girl, but then Asian girls have this ability to look Kwai.

This if you say to your girl friend and or wife. I wouldn't say it to a wife you've been married to for years as she would think you are taking the piss or something. Chinese women are like that.

Essentially if a woman asks me to 洗白白, I reckon my chances of scoring with her are 99/100 and I will tear her clothes and do her straightaway in the shower, during and after the shower.

On the flip side if any guy a friend, colleague etc, except a parent if you happen to be 5 years old or younger tells me to 洗白白, I will probably punch him in the face as I think he is trying to as we say in the UK pull me and get me in the sack to probably pound my ass. Unless of course it was the rare situation if say I were working in a laundry and a customer came in with some white sheets then I suppose that would be acceptable circumstance to use this phrase male to male.

Of course these are not the only expressions about washing but they are the most common and you didn't ask me about those either. Like 桑拿 (sauna) but it'd take me forever and as per rule 5 or is it 6 I can't be bothered with that.

Course this only applies to Cantonese, as Mandarin speakers in Taiwan or in China outside Hong Kong and Guangzhou will instead say xi zao ( 洗 澡)

Hope to have helped you out there.