Tuhao, let's be friends

The language is evolving. This is true about Chinese language and true as well abut English language.

So, do you now what a Tuhao is ?

It is a word that has become very popuar recently in Chinese language. You can write like this : 土豪. And actually, it is not a new world, it is a quite ancient one. Used at firts to describe some low level nobility, it became at the beginning of the century a world to descrite a king of lang tyrant and then almost disapeared in order to come back now with a new usage.

The word is still pejorative, it describes someone that has mede a quick fortune in the contemporary China. And there is quite a few with the economic boom of the lats decades. They have very bling taste, buy expensive products without thinking aboud good taste or anything ike that. It is about showing off.

If you look at the two character, it refers to the land, dust, earth. The second one is a knight.

So, if you ade a fortune recently and love to display your money, you are a Tuhao. On Weibo and Weixin, the Chine equivalents of twitter, there have been tons of jokes about Tuhaos. A lot of them have revolved around the new iphone with a golden color which seems to have become a symbol of Tuhaoism... There has been at least a million Tuhaomessages in the three last month, thats quite a few. The trend is so strong that an english dicionnary, the Oxford English dictionnary, is thinking about including it in its next edition, saying that it is reminiscent of another word that apeared recently in English : bling.. So will there be a new wrd in English in 2014 derivateing from Chinese. This is under study but seems likely.

The basic sentence about Tuhao on the Chinese web is : Tuhao, let's be friends. It is the meaning of the word that has two connotations : money is important, so it's good to have Tuhao friends. Sarcasm and atrraction at the same time. People desipese them but people are jealous of them. There is many new words appearing in the English language and the pace of creation of new words is always going faster, and the word in Chinese has an irony attached to it which is lost in traslation. A Tuhao is something else than a nouveau riche.

Chinese people are very creative on the interne. Tarditional Changyu, these classical sentences used as mottos to describe all kinds of situations are very ppular in China and gain new lives when they are used in new contexts. Chinese people loves to create new words and Tuhao is a good example.

Another thing, this word is the proof of a deep change in Chinese society, when ou criticize tose bling people who have no taste, it means that the luxury image in China becomes more mature.

Sources :

Beijing Relocation

Shanghai Daily

China Daily

Marketing Buzzz