OMG! Chinese Buzzwords! (33)

豆腐渣婚姻(dòu fu zhā hūn yīn)
jerry-built marriage
Some people have described the marriage of a rising number of young couples born in the 1980s as a building constructed with poor materials: hastily made and readily collapsible, on the grounds that these young couples meet by speed dating, get a hurried marriage and then break up shortly after.

上只角，下只角(shàng zhī jiǎo, xià zhī jiǎo)
Uptown, good neighborhood, nice part of town; slum, ghetto, rundown area, bad part of town

During the 1930s and 1940s, Shanghai people began to divide the city into 上只角(zang ze go) and 下只角(wu ze go). The two dialectic terms translate literally the "upper corner" and the "lower corner," meaning the luxurious area and the rundown area, respectively.

上只角(zang ze go) referred to the west and southwest part of the city, mainly the former French Concession area that sprawled along today's Huaihai Road and part of the Xuhui District. This part of the city boasted luxurious villas, posh shops and dazzling nightclubs and it was inhabited by the rich and expatriates.

下只角(wu ze go) covered mainly the east areas of the city, the home of polluting factories and slums wher the city's poor and working people lived.

So, some people say that Shanghai used to be a "city tipping toward the southwest."

The rapid urban development in recent decades has blurred the old demarcation lines between the former 上只角(zang ze go) and 下只角(wu ze go). Many new luxurious residences and ritzy shopping malls have sprung up in the former 下只角(wu ze go) districts.

As a result, in modern usage, 上只角(zang ze go) and 下只角(wu ze go) are often used to describe a nice or better part and a rundown or worse part of the city, respectively, without specific geological indications.

吃香(chī xiāng)
Popular, respected, esteemed

This term translates literally as "eating incense." Some people believe that this Shanghainese phrase came from a practice in the Northern Song Dynasty (960-1127).

At that time, there was a special department in the imperial court that took care of the promotion and job assignments for officials. To seek an earlier promotion or a better job, many officials tended to offer bribes to the department in the name of an "incense fee," just like people offering it at a temple. It was said that those serving in the department could collect more money from the "incense fee" than the annual pay they received from the imperial court. Therefore, they were nicknamed as the "incense eaters," a position envied by many others.

Later, the term 吃香(che shiang) has been used to mean something popular or any people who enjoy high respect and esteem.

吃瘪(chī biē)
Eat humble pie, eat boiled crow, forced into submission, forced to admit defeat, be overwhelmed

Whenever you are in a situation that you have to "eat humble pie" or "eat boiled crow," Shanghai people would instead say that you have to "eat flatness" or 吃瘪(che bi). This Shanghai dialectic term may also mean someone is defeated or overwhelmed. For instance, one may say: "In the face of the final court ruling, the plaintiff has to 吃瘪(che bi)."