Category: Current Events

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Culture Current Events

pòfáng

pòfáng (pò·fáng {break [through]}; destroy · defending → [(video games) break through defences | make sb. feel upset/shocked/moved/touched/etc.] 破防) ← Tap/click to show/hide the “flashcard”

As 2021 drew to a close, articles appeared on the Internet with lists of Chinese (Mandarin) expressions that were deemed to have been significant in 2021, perhaps reflecting what had been on the minds of many Chinese people in that year.

One of the expressions that appears on these lists is this week’s MEotW, “pòfáng (pò·fáng {break [through]}; destroy · defending → [(video games) break through defences | make sb. feel upset/shocked/moved/touched/etc.] 破防)”.

Here are some quotes from some of these articles about “pòfáng (pò·fáng {break [through]}; destroy · defending → [(video games) break through defences | make sb. feel upset/shocked/moved/touched/etc.] 破防)”:

破防 pòfáng

Defense torn down

Originally a term used in online games, this phrase has been taken up by netizens to indicate the emotional impact on oneself from some event or news.

—“Words to Sum Up 2021”

screenshot of Sixth Tone article discussing “_pòfáng_”
—“The Best Chinese Internet Slang, 2021 Edition”

“Defense broken (破防 pòfáng)” is another buzzword to describe mental collapse that emerged in 2021. The term conveys being moved, shocked, or touched. An emotional scene in a movie or news of heroism online often causes netizens to say: “I burst into tears after seeing these defense breaking moments (看到这些破防瞬间, 我泪奔了 Kàndào zhèxiē pòfáng shùnjiān, wǒ lèibēn le).”
—“Internet Slang Terms that Defined 2021”

I personally have not yet heard “pòfáng (pò·fáng {break [through]}; destroy · defending → [(video games) break through defences | make sb. feel upset/shocked/moved/touched/etc.] 破防)” used in actual conversation, so I don’t have a personal feel for when it may or may not be appropriate to use this expression. Hopefully the above explanations provide some guidance. As with any relatively colloquial or informal expression, we Mandarin field language learners should use our discretion about when and how we use “pòfáng (pò·fáng {break [through]}; destroy · defending → [(video games) break through defences | make sb. feel upset/shocked/moved/touched/etc.] 破防)”, if we do. At the least, it’s nice to know what it means, at least approximately, if we hear it or read it somewhere.

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Current Events

bō

bō ({wave (of water/sound/etc.)} [→ [unexpected turn of events]] 波) ← Tap/click to show/hide the “flashcard”

[Note: Tap/click on a Pīnyīn (Pīn·yīn {Piecing Together} · Sounds → [Pinyin] 拼音) expression to reveal its “flashcard”, tap/click on a “flashcard” or its Pīnyīn (Pīn·yīn {Piecing Together} · Sounds → [Pinyin] 拼音) expression to hide the “flashcard”.]

As of this writing, early in the year 2022, the subject of the COVID-19 pandemic has been, to say the least, on people’s minds now for a while. So, it would be good to be able to refer to things related to it in Mandarin when speaking to people in the Mandarin field, or when speaking to our brothers and sisters in the truth.

electron microscope image of SARS-CoV-2—also known as 2019-nCoV, the virus that causes COVID-19

An electron microscope image of SARS-CoV-2—also known as 2019-nCoV, the virus that causes COVID-19
Creative Commons Attribution License logo NIAID

This week’s MEotW, “bō ({wave (of water/sound/etc.)} [→ [unexpected turn of events]] 波)”, means “wave”, as in “fourth COVID-19 wave”. It’s the “bō ({wave (of water/sound/etc.)} [→ [unexpected turn of events]] 波)” in “bōlàng (bō·làng wave (of the sea) 波浪)”, a relatively well-known word which refers to a wave of the sea.

To say, for example, “fourth COVID-19 wave” in Mandarin, one could say:

“dì‐sì ((dì [pref to form ordinal numbers] 第)‐(sì four 四) → [fourth]) bō ({wave of} 波) COVID-19”

Note that sometimes, people may put words like “yìqíng (yì·qíng epidemic · situation (used, e.g., to refer to the COVID-19 situation) 疫情)”, “làngcháo (làng·cháo wave · tide 浪潮)”, etc. after the above expression.

Google Wave Frequencies

The following tables of numbers of Google search results give us an idea of how frequently the above-mentioned contruction is used.

dì‐yī ((dì [pref to form ordinal numbers] 第)‐(yī one 一) → [first]) bō (wave 波)
Search Terms Google Results Approx. No.
"第一波" covid
("dì‐yī ((dì [pref to form ordinal numbers] 第)‐(yī one 一) → [first]) bō (wave 波)" covid)		 1,890,000
"第一波covid"
("dì‐yī ((dì [pref to form ordinal numbers] 第)‐(yī one 一) → [first]) bō ({wave of} 波) covid")		 15,600
dì‐èr ((dì [pref to form ordinal numbers] 第)‐(èr two 二) → [second]) bō (wave 波)
Search Terms Google Results Approx. No.
"第二波" covid
("dì‐èr ((dì [pref to form ordinal numbers] 第)‐(èr two 二) → [second]) bō (wave 波)" covid)		 1,100,000
"第二波covid"
("dì‐èr ((dì [pref to form ordinal numbers] 第)‐(èr two 二) → [second]) bō ({wave of} 波) covid")		 70,600
dì‐sān ((dì [pref to form ordinal numbers] 第)‐(sān three 三) → [third]) bō (wave 波)
Search Terms Google Results Approx. No.
"第三波" covid
("dì‐sān ((dì [pref to form ordinal numbers] 第)‐(sān three 三) → [third]) bō (wave 波)" covid)		 1,150,000
"第三波covid"
("dì‐sān ((dì [pref to form ordinal numbers] 第)‐(sān three 三) → [third]) bō ({wave of} 波) covid")		 5,170
dì‐sì ((dì [pref to form ordinal numbers] 第)‐(sì four 四) → [fourth]) bō (wave 波)
Search Terms Google Results Approx. No.
"第四波" covid
("dì‐sì ((dì [pref to form ordinal numbers] 第)‐(sì four 四) → [fourth]) bō (wave 波)" covid)		 164,000
"第四波covid"
("dì‐sì ((dì [pref to form ordinal numbers] 第)‐(sì four 四) → [fourth]) bō ({wave of} 波) covid")		 5,510
dì‐wǔ ((dì [pref to form ordinal numbers] 第)‐(wǔ five 五) → [fifth]) bō (wave 波)
Search Terms Google Results Approx. No.
"第五波" covid
("dì‐wǔ ((dì [pref to form ordinal numbers] 第)‐(wǔ five 五) → [fifth]) bō (wave 波)" covid)		 711,000
"第五波covid"
("dì‐wǔ ((dì [pref to form ordinal numbers] 第)‐(wǔ five 五) → [fifth]) bō ({wave of} 波) covid")		 1,850
Categories
Culture Current Events History Technology

yún

yún ({cloud [(online)]} 云 雲/云) ← Tap/click to show/hide the “flashcard”

The magazine The World of Chinese recently posted on its website the article “Words to Sum Up 2021”. One of the words it listed was “yún ({cloud [(online)]} 云 雲/云)”, which can mean “cloud” literally, or “cloud” meaning “online”:

As the pandemic rages on, “cloud” services have become increasingly popular, including 云课堂 (yún kètáng, online classes), 云问诊 (yún wènzhěn, online diagnosis), and 云旅游 (yún lǚyóu, “traveling” by watching livestreams of scenic spots).

cloud computing
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Where “Clouds” Came From

This use of “yún ({cloud [(online)]} 云 雲/云)” to effectively mean “online” almost certainly came from the English use of “cloud” to mean “online”, since using those fluffy masses of condensed watery vapour in the sky to represent network-connected computer system resources evidently originated in the English-speaking world. As Wikipedia summarizes:

References to the phrase “cloud computing” appeared as early as 1996, with the first known mention in a Compaq internal document.[source]

The cloud symbol was used to represent networks of computing equipment in the original ARPANET by as early as 1977,[source] and the CSNET by 1981[source]—both predecessors to the Internet itself. The word cloud was used as a metaphor for the Internet and a standardized cloud-like shape was used to denote a network on telephony schematics. With this simplification, the implication is that the specifics of how the endpoints of a network are connected are not relevant to understanding the diagram.[source]

The term cloud was used to refer to platforms for distributed computing as early as 1993, when Apple spin-off General Magic and AT&T used it in describing their (paired) Telescript and PersonaLink technologies.[source]

BTW, the Mandarin term for Apple’s iCloud is…“iCloud”.