A guide to expressing embarrassment like a Chinese netizen

China's netizens are embarrassed. So embarrassed they've come up with new slang to express it. Some are so mortified they want to "find a crack in the ground to crawl into (尷尬到想鉆地縫 gān gà dào xiǎng zuān dì fèng)." Others are "so embarrassed that their toes dig into the ground (尷尬到腳趾摳地 gān gà dào jiǎo zhǐ kōu dì)."

From accidentally sending personal messages to work supervisors to being forced to perform in front of elderly relatives at a family gathering, no matter what Chinese netizens feel uncomfortable about, there's a phrase to describe the depths of their despair.

Netizens' embarrassment has gradually escalated recently. First, they felt, "so embarrassed that I could dig a three-bedroom flat with my curled toes (尷尬到腳趾摳出三室一廳 gān gà dào jiǎo zhǐ kōu chū sān shì yī tīng)"; later their "clenched toes could pierce through the Earth (摳到挖穿地球 kōu dào wā chuān dì qiú)."

Public marriage proposals, in particular, have been deemed so horrifying that some joked that "if you wait long enough in silence as the crowd looks on, your partner's curled toes will dig out your dream home (先別急著吭聲，等他一個人在人群中尷尬到腳趾摳出三室一廳，戶型滿意再答應 xiān bié jí zhe kēng shēng, děng tā yī gè rén zài rén qún zhōng gān gà dào jiǎo zhǐ kōu chū sān shì yī tīng, hù xíng mǎn yì zài dā ying)."

Before "curled toes" became popular slang, netizens also coined phrases like "embarrassed to the point of suffocation (尷尬到窒息 gān gà dào zhì xī)" and "so embarrassed that the air around me froze (尷尬到空氣突然凝固 gān gà dào kōng qì tū rán níng gù)."

Most of these embarrassed netizens suffer "social anxiety (社恐 shè kǒng)." They are almost exclusively "I人 (I rén)"—introverts, as determined by the Myers-Briggs Type Indicator (MBTI) test that recently went viral in China.

But these loners are becoming addicted to consuming embarrassing content online, and "after surfing the net so long, my embarrassment threshold is becoming lower and lower (網上沖浪多了，感覺自己尬點越來越低 wǎng shang chōng làng duō le, gǎn jué zì jǐ gà diǎn yuè lái yuè dī)," they write.

Others simply grind their way through embarrassing scenarios, putting on "an awkward yet polite smile (尷尬又不失禮貌的微笑 gān gà yòu bù shī lǐ mào de wēi xiào)." The goal is to preserve the facade of calm: "Even if I've already dug out the East African Rift with my toes, I remain composed, facing life's embarrassments with a cheerful smile (即使我腳下已經挖出一條東非大裂谷，表面上我依然波瀾不驚，笑嘻嘻面對尷尬人生 Jí shǐ wǒ jiǎo xià yǐ jīng wā chū yī tiáo Dōng fēi Dà liè gǔ, biǎo miàn shang wǒ yī rán bō lán bù jīng, xiào xī xī miàn duì gān gà rén shēng)."

After all, as Chinese netizens have long preached: "As long as I'm not embarrassed, someone else will be (只要我不尷尬，尷尬的就是別人 Zhǐ yào wǒ bù gān gà, gān gà de jiù shì bié rén)."

Source: The World of Chinese
Editor: wanwan