Interesting G-rated slang terms (not sex or obscenity type slang)

[Teddoman]

Just curious if anyone has some slang that's just interesting to share, maybe because of an interesting back story behind it or something. There are previous threads for sex and obscenity related slang, so this is more for slang interesting in its own right. I find Mandarin slang often has some sort of cute story behind it.

fang4 niu2 ban1 放牛班
This is an oldie that probably few living Taiwanese has thought about in decades. Apparently as early as the 40s/50s, schools were divided into classroom sections on different education tracks: 1) 升學班 continuation sections for students who were planning to continue to the next level (from elementary to junior high, or junior high to high school, etc), and 2) 不升學班 non-continuation sections. These tracks started as early as elementary school. Students in the non-continuation track tended to be from poorer families whose kids were needed as labor in the family businesses. So a nickname for the non-continuation track sections was 放牛班, or roughly, cowhands sections, i.e. for cowhands who put the cattle out to graze.

[ehophi]

"Cleaning up after someone," that is, doing someone's work because they've not done it or have done it poorly, is "wiping someone's butt," (擦某個人的屁股), for obvious reasons.

[Teddoman]

wan4 guo2 qi2 萬國旗

Here's another 1960s oldie. At college student dorms in the 1960s, before there were drying machines, clothes were hung out to dry on balconies or on the walkway in front of the doors of the dorm rooms. So when visiting someone's dorm room, the first thing one saw was the drying clothes and underwear hung out in front of their doors. The hodge podge of colors created by drying clothes and underwear on display in front of most student rooms was jokingly referred to as 萬國旗, or "flags of all nations".

No idea if this is still in use.

[Teddoman]

雞婆 together with detailed explanation:

雞婆（ke-poˊ）──多管閒事（的人）

I just recently saw someone use this on facebook after providing information on a subject. She received a compliment "真的好熱心,又好專業啊...真是感謝" to which she replied jokingly "雞婆就是我的專業, 沒錯沒錯~"

[bomblog]

OK, Teddoman. I have two for you.

The first refers to the age old theme of infidelity: 偷情节 (tou1 qing2 jie2), if you didn't know, is the day BEFORE Valentine's Day. The source explains "On February 13, cheating husbands take their mistresses out to celebrate their affair discreetly."

The other is quite a new phenomenon; but it's a game that might appeal to Luddites: "手机叠叠乐(shou3 ji1 die2 die2 le4) phone stack. At a gathering, in order to prevent everyone from playing with their phones, grab them and stack them face down in the center of the table.... The first person to take his or her phone will have to pay the bill. If no one touches their phone, the bill will be split."

I picked these two interesting examples from the extensive feed of "Chinese buzzwords" (not from Taiwan I'm afraid) found amongst some of my resources on the "Mandarin Baked Fresh Daily page" here. The slang and colloquiallisms in there are quite new, and often have a Web 2.0 feel about them.

[kaikai34]

American time 美國時間 mei3 guo2 shi2 jian1 meaning having an excess amount of time. At first, I was a bit confused as to why the Taiwanese would think that there are more hours in the day for Americans, but then I started thinking about the hours in the average work day for adults and school day for students and the amount of vacations (summer, winter, spring) and holidays and it started to make sense.

Usage:
Boss: 幹嘛不用我們自己的影印機? 比送外面便宜. Why don't you use our own copy machine? It's cheaper than having the booklets sent out to be made.
Me : 我哪有那個美國時間! Whose got time to do all that?

[Teddoman]

I picked these two interesting examples from the extensive feed of "Chinese buzzwords" (not from Taiwan I'm afraid) found amongst some of my resources on the "Mandarin Baked Fresh Daily page" here. The slang and colloquiallisms in there are quite new, and often have a Web 2.0 feel about them.

The Shanghaidaily buzzwords are quite fresh and contemporary, so thanks for the great link. I'd be curious if there was an equivalent resource for Taiwan. Looking at the list, there did seem to be a good amount of stuff that was definitely mainland. Be interesting to see if Taiwanese people use any of these, or if Taiwanese people have their own.

[Teddoman]

爬文 pa2wen2

This is a newfangled word arising via the interwebs, bbs, forums, and related

Example I saw on a fb forum:
之前好像有媽媽們討論過，想找針灸推拿師，爬文一陣子還是沒找到，覺得臉書少了一個功能，就是沒辦法搜尋@@

[Teddoman]

Interesting tidbit here. Facebook (the public company) has many different names in Asia.

From http://zh.wikipedia.org/wiki/Facebook:
由於Facebook沒有官方中文名稱，不同漢語地區的使用者社群便各自發展出不同的譯名，如中國的臉譜[4][5]、香港的面書或面簿、台灣的臉書[6]、馬來西亞的面子書等。
So in Taiwan, it's 臉書