Chinese vocabulary notes (June 2023)

Young people, why don’t you marry anymore?

Mainland Chinese journalist 王志安 discusses that recently, there have been a lot of videos on the Chinese internet defending that you’re better off unmarried. According to data released by the Chinese Ministry of Civil Affairs, the number of registered marriages nationwide in 2022 was 6.83 million, the lowest value since statistics were available (1985). Compared with last year, the number dropped 10%. It’s hard for me to judge these statistics, but 6.83 million seems a staggeringly low number for such a populous country, right?

As always, 王志安 shares his analysis on this development and even offers some potential solutions. This is a complicated topic related to the dropping birth rate and the ‘lying flat‘ phenomenon that we covered in previous editions of Chinese Vocabulary Notes (#5, #12). I must admit that without subtitles it’s still hard for me to understand everything in full detail, but he has a great gift of explaining complex matters and put things into a broader context, be it historical or cultural. That’s why, even though I have to ‘cheat’ a bit by activating the English subtitles, I always enjoy 王志安’s video’s and learn something new.

Level indication: HSK 5 (with transcript)

Chinese summary: 中国人为什么不结婚了？中国的结婚数据表明2023年的生育率下降了。此外，中国的人口增长也出现了停滞。记者王志安将他的看法分享给大家。

Why the Chinese don’t like the Little Mermaid?

It seems the Chinese audience doesn’t like the new version of ‘The little mermaid’. Indeed, the musical fantasy film scores only a modest 5.1 on Douban. Chinese teacher Li Can explains it has something to do with Chinese beauty standards and 炒冷饭 (fried rice). Actually, it’s not just the Chinese audience, 小美人鱼’s appearance – as someone who knows Andersen’s tale and seen ‘den lille havfrue‘ in Copenhagen – doesn’t make much sense to me either.

Level indication: HSK 5 (with transcript)

Chinese summary: “小美人鱼”的重制版在中国上映了。这部迪斯尼电影在中国观众中并不太受欢迎，因为小美人鱼的外貌不符合中国人的审美标准。许多网友嘲笑主角的脏辫。中文老师李灿对此发表了评述，解释了为何会出现这样的现象。

Cycling in Wuhan｜Intermediate Chinese Listening Practice

Ah Wuhan! It will take a long time for most people on this planet to connect the name Wuhan to something else than the Covid-thing. But as we can see in Shenglan’s footage, things have sort of returned to normal, although people are still wearing medical masks, even in the hot and smoggy atmosphere of summer.

Level indication: HSK 4 (with transcript)

Chinese summary: 中国博主Shenglan用自行车来探索武汉。她帮我们了解了大流行之后武汉的实际情况。生活似乎已经基本恢复正常，但仍然有一些人在路上戴着口罩。Shenglan骑自行车的同时拍摄视频的技术很不错。她用网络语中一个流行的词汇“特种兵式的旅游”来描述她这次旅行的经验。

Traveling in Hongkong with Julie

Julie tries to relax in Hongkong, but has to film the whole process, that must be so exhausting. She takes us to 南丫岛, a place where people go to find stress relief.

Level indication: HSK 4 (with English + Chinese subtitles)

Chinese summary: Julie去了一趟香港旅游。她给我们介绍了不少香港特色菜。虽然她原本安排了很多工作，但在香港她都不想再做了，希望能够躺平缓解压力。然而，作为一名YouTuber，她仍然决定拍摄整个旅程。

Chinese young people VS housing prices

Shanghai resident Kevin argues that nowadays buying property in China’s big cities is like a ‘city entry tax’. In order to get properly registered as a resident (落户口) and get access to local facilities (like schooling for children), you need to buy real estate. Since many people can’t afford to become the owner of their own home, raising children becomes a problem, because they wouldn’t be able to send them to school. So the point Kevin is making is that the high housing prices and the negative population growth in China are tied together. It’s not simply that young Chinese people are ‘lying flat’ (躺平) and refuse to have children. It has everything to do with economic and bureaucratic realities.

I normally don’t follow Kevin in Shanghai’s channel and haven’t seen his other video’s, but this one, discussing a hot social topic, I really enjoyed. He brings a subtle inside perspective. Please watch the video the get the full gist of his argument.

Level indication: HSK 5 (with Chinese subtitles)

Chinese summary: 上海居民Kevin给我们解释为什么在大城市购房对他来说相当于一种进城税。这个问题与中国的出生率降低有关，但是这个关系比较复杂。按照Kevin的分析，房子和教育资源是紧密相连的。这是因为为了让孩子进入学校，中国居民首先必须购房。先要购房才能落户口，而先要落户口才能享受到教育资源。教育水平与房价有关。房价越高，教育质量越好，因此购房被视为一种进城税。只有交纳这种“税款”，才能获取当地的资源。主要问题是，如果两个人在上海工作，从谈恋爱到生孩子的过程中，许多伴侣买不起房，因此无法迈出下一步。

After 4 years in a relationship with a foreigner, what do we really think about international marriages?

Last but not least: Jared and Susu discuss the up- and downsides of cross-cultural relationships, based on their experience of being 4 years together. Communication in either Chinese or English doesn’t seem a problem for them, including on a emotional level. Good honest video, yet too short to discuss other interesting aspects like different cultural values, world views and ways to resolve conflicts. Since I’m also in a 跨国婚恋, I can relate to the things discussed here and appreciate their openness. Also on the topic of 语言学习. In my experience, this depends on the relationship. Not every partner is also a good teacher. Nor does it always work to switch the lingua franca (English for example) to the target language (Chinese), if you’re both used to speaking English. It can be done, for sure, but it takes great effort of will on both sides.

Level indication: HSK 4 (with English + Chinese subtitles)