Hello and welcome back to Catchword, which is our vocabulary series for intermediate and above English learners that teaches you idioms slang, phrasal verbs and more.
And our goal here at Catchword is to help your speaking sound more natural and to allow you to understand the English that you hear and around you when you're speaking with native speakers or you're watching a TV series or something like this.
My name is Andrew, of course, and I'm going to be joined here by my co-host Indiana, in just a second.
And today we are going to introduce and teach you about some new slang and some internet memes that are related to the country of China.
And actually this is going to be a little bit of a different style of episode, because usually in Catchword here what we do is we introduce some new vocabulary to you and then we give you some usage examples and teach you how to use it in your English speaking.
However today, because we're talking about internet memes, I think it's more likely that you'll see these expressions used on social media, but maybe you won't actually use them in your English speaking.
So we're going to kind of combine a catchword episode with a chatterbox episode today.
We're going to teach you the vocabulary, teach you the memes, but then we'll have more of a discussion around them.
And especially, I think our discussion will focus on the emergence of China as this phenomenon, interesting country that sort of appeared lately in the West.
China suddenly has become very popular and the spotlight is on China right now.
And so we're going to talk about this new trend, this new phenomenon.
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Okay, it's time to welcome Indiana to the show and we'll get started with our conversation.
Hope you enjoy it.
Here we go.
And joining me now to talk about China and to introduce three slang expressions related to China is my co-host Indiana.
Hello, Indiana.
How's it going?
Hello, Andrew.
I'm doing well.
I'm pretty excited to talk about a meme today.
I don't think I have had this opportunity to talk about a meme on QLips before, so this should be fun.
Yeah, and maybe we should start by describing what a meme is, just so everybody's on the same page and we all understand what we're talking about when we use this word meme, which has a very interesting spelling.
The spelling looks like Mimi, M-E-M-E, but we don't say Mimi, we say meme.
What is a meme, Indiana?
What are we talking about when we use this word?
Yeah.
Originally, memes tended to be widely circulated images or like joke formats where you would have an image and some text and this would be sent to your friends.
What would be a good example of this?
Maybe like in really early Internet, these images of cats doing funny things and saying things like I can has cheeseburger, which is such an ancient meme.
Everybody listening should look this old old meme up and say wow, that was an ancient part of the Internet.
Yeah.
But these days, I think a meme is more often seen like in reels or short video content.
And it's just kind of like a joke or a video format.
What's a good example of a popular one that is not our topic for today, Andrew?
What would you say?
Yeah, a meme, I guess you could say, is just anything that goes viral and that a lot of people share.
And I think with TikTok and Instagram, these apps that are focused around short video content.
It's really hard to say these days because everybody's algorithm is very specific to them.
So I think there are lots of mini memes that maybe, in certain communities, go viral, but you can see a lot of people using the same format again and again and again, or maybe the same song again and again, and again.
It's really interesting these days that music can go to the top of the charts if it's used as the background soundtrack for a TikTok video.
So, for example Indiana, there's this one song that comes to mind that I've seen in many reels over the last little while.
Maybe this trend is sort of dying out now, but there's a song called End of the Beginning which is sung by this singer.
I'm not actually sure how you pronounce it. his band name or his name.
It's D-J-O is the spelling, maybe Joe.
I'm not sure.
But this song has this one little line in the chorus.
The line goes, and when I'm back in Chicago, I feel it.
And just that little snippet of the chorus has been played in like tons of different reels that I've seen on Instagram.
And actually the song was relatively unknown.
But because it was in so many reels, this song actually became really popular and started charting on Spotify and different music platforms.
And the singer got a lot of attention because of that.
So I think this is what we mean by meme, something that's repeated a lot.
It's going viral and originally had to do with comedy and funny things.
Like you talked about the cat memes.
For me, the classic meme, maybe because I'm even older than you, Indiana, is the dancing baby meme.
Do you know that one?
The dancing baby?
It's like this original animated gif that went viral back when I was a kid.
And so to me, that's still like the classic meme that I think of.
But yeah, that's what we mean by meme, guys.
And there are these China related memes emerging online. over the last year or so.
And I think they hint on a reimagining of how people in Western countries are thinking about China, but also they're hinting at some bigger meme trends that are also emerging these days.
And so we'll talk about all of these things in this episode.
And there are three different memes that we'll talk about.
The first one is China Maxing.
China Maxing.
And here, Maxing is spelt M-A-X-X-I-N-G.
And you guys may have seen these online, these Max Satan memes.
There are a lot of different Maxing memes.
It's like super popular these days to talk about anything Maxing.
Like...
Originally, I think the first meme was called looks maxing, but there's also health maxing, sleep maxing.
I recently heard a radio story about folks friction maxing, like all of these different maxing memes.
So maybe Indiana, we should start by talking about what does maxing meme in terms of internet slang.
Yeah, so I would say, as you mentioned, it originates from this idea.
This one term looks maxing, which seems to be doing anything that you can to improve your physical appearance.
And this term actually is kind of being used among, like primarily young men who are really focused on achieving higher social status and gaining financial gains in life and through improving their looks.
So this is a a whole can of worms that we don't have to go into.
But this first usage of maxing I think comes from looks maxing.
But this suffix, right, maxing, doing something to the maximum, It sounds really good.
It's easy to say.
So a lot of new trends are popping up.
So anything that you're doing to the extreme, to the max, trying to do as much as you can of you might encounter this out in the wild as something maxing.
Like I was trying to think you know what is something that I would say I'm doing something maxing.
And I was like, I wonder if people say this efficiency maxing.
Like if I'm doing work and I'm multitasking and I'm like really trying to do my work in the most efficient order and, like you know, get it done as soon as possible.
I feel like if I was using the parlance of our times, this internet slang, I might say yeah, I've been efficiency maxing.
Something like that.
Yeah, that's a great one.
And I completely understand what you mean, even though I don't think I've heard that one before.
That's just a brand new term that I just heard at the same time as all of the listeners out here.
But I immediately understand what you're trying to communicate with efficiency maxing.
So I think that's a great example.
The other one that kind of popped into my mind here when you were talking there was how about Q-lips maxing?
So if you were listening to a lot of Q-lips episodes in one day or really going all in with studying English with Q-lips and attending our speaking classes and doing all of these things, then you could say you're Q-lips maxing.
Yeah, it just means doing something to the extreme or optimizing your life to fit your goal, so that you can achieve that goal.
Okay, so China maxing then.
What does China maxing mean and why is this meme emerging recently?
Do you think, from what I've seen about China maxing is like videos of people playing some older Chinese pop music on in the background and doing things that they associate with Chinese culture, like maybe drinking green tea or using slippers inside the house or something like that, doing Tai Chi?
And I don't think I've seen anything where it's like serious, where it's like you guys watching should be doing this, but it's more like a sort of comical celebration of Chinese culture in some way.
Like, yeah, it's kind of hard to describe, but these sort of humorous, but also appreciative videos about Chinese culture that I've been seeing circulated.
Yeah, I think a nice expression to use in this kind of situation is tongue in cheek.
Tongue in cheek.
So tongue in cheek means you're being a little bit humorous.
You're joking around a little bit.
There's humor mixed in with seriousness.
So we just explained that maxing means doing something to the extreme and trying to optimize it in your life.
So when we hear China maxing, then you would assume that it means living like a completely Chinese lifestyle.
But of course, that's impossible when you live in a Western country, right?
You can't speak Chinese in your daily life because well, we live in English speaking countries, so that's not going to work.
You can't just like 100% live a Chinese lifestyle when you're not living in China.
That's almost impossible.
So instead, what people are doing is just sort of joking around like oh, I'm incorporating this one aspect of what they think is Chinese culture because to an extent there's an assumption that this is maybe what all Chinese people do.
But that's just an assumption, right?
There's Tons of people that live in China, so you can't assume that everybody is doing these things, but they're just choosing one little aspect, like maybe drinking green tea instead of drinking coffee.
And then they say they're China maxing, like they've changed a little bit of their lifestyle to be more what they imagine a Chinese person would do.
That's right.
And I could also imagine.
Maybe this is a video that I've seen, or this just pops into my mind as a potential funny China maxing video.
Like if somebody sat down on a train and And it was it transitioned from them sitting into the train to this Chinese music and some sort of Chinese text on screen.
And it's like I'm trying to maxing, because China is famous for having really effective high speed rail.
Whereas, for example, in a place like the United States, that is just not available.
So, kind of celebrating this oh yeah rail right trains, and that could be almost china maxing right, that could be funny.
Yeah right, you're right, in china they have great high-speed rail and in north america we have zero.
Very, very frustrating.
Yeah, famously none Yeah.
Can't get it done.
Just can't get it done in the West.
So that's the first meme that has emerged over the last six months to a year or so.
Let's move on to the second one.
And again, I think this is almost like the same thing, but.
Slightly different nuance to it.
So we should break this one down as well.
Expression number two is Chinese baddie.
Chinese baddie.
And here baddie is spelt B-A-D-D-I-E.
And again, we should maybe explain what a baddie is, because we could use this in other contexts as well.
It doesn't have to just be a Chinese baddie.
Indiana, why don't you do the honors?
What is or who is a baddie?
Yeah, my understanding of a baddie would be somebody, especially a woman, but I suppose it could be any gender.
Somebody who is so self-confident is very attractive, has everything they need and they know it and they're not worried about you, right.
And they're just exuding self-confidence, somebody who really has everything going on going well for them and is very yeah, very attractive too.
But i'm gonna have to ask you andrew, because this chinese baddie meme or video like i have not seen these videos, so i would love to hear from you what exactly this this entails.
Yeah, I think I've just seen it on social media when talking about maybe some kind of celebrity or some kind of attractive person from China where they're Like everything in their life seems perfect.
Maybe they have a good job.
They're highly educated.
They're attractive.
These kinds of things.
This kind of person would be described as being a baddie, a Chinese baddie.
And so, yeah, I've seen this just appear on my social media feeds.
You know, my algorithm gives me this kind of content from time to time, perhaps because I'm located in Asia.
Maybe, you know, it's difficult to say everybody's algorithm is different.
And, depending on what you look at, I look at a lot of things related to Korea, related to Asian news, because I live here.
And so maybe this seeps into my algorithm and I'm more likely to see it than other people.
But yeah, the Chinese baddie is just some person from China who is really well put together, has an optimized lifestyle, good career wealthy attractive, like all of these good features.
I think.
And yeah, I would imagine Indiana, that this is mostly used to talk about women, but I think it could be for anyone, like you said, but I think I've seen it mostly used to talk about women.
And yeah, We do have this expression, a baddie that we can use to describe these kinds of people just in everyday life.
Now, I wouldn't necessarily call someone a baddie, I don't think.
I think I'm too old.
I've aged out of this expression.
But it is one that maybe you could hear, right, used in real life.
Yeah, I think, maybe celebrating somebody like a celebrity, a famous person or even just somebody you know and you're like oh, she's such a baddie.
You could hear that, but I don't think I also probably have never said that.
Yeah, and I think there is a real strong emphasis here on physical attractiveness as well.
Like a baddie is definitely a higher than average attractiveness.
Yeah, like a very, very attractive, very beautiful person.
Okay, so that's the Chinese baddie meme that has also emerged.
And then let's see.
Finally, the third meme that has come into being is it's a longer sentence.
It is you met me at a very Chinese time in my life.
You met me at a very Chinese time in my life.
And again, I wouldn't hear people saying this in their real life, but I've seen it on Instagram posts.
I know it's been on Twitter.
I believe it became viral on X or Twitter, whatever you want to call it maybe last year, around this time last year.
So it's been in the mimosphere, the internet world, for around a year or so.
And again, I think this is hinting at people adopting some kind of aspect of Chinese culture into their Western lifestyle.
Right
So maybe...
Using chopsticks instead of using a knife and fork.
You'd say, you met me at a very Chinese time in my life.
I'm incorporating this Asian aspect of how to eat food into my Western lifestyle.
Or drinking green tea instead of drinking coffee, or using an asian skincare product, something like this.
And they would say you met me at a very chinese time in my life.
I could see this as being the caption for an instagram photo, if somebody were Yeah, maybe drinking a glass of green tea instead of a cup of coffee at a cafe or something.
And it's just a joke, right?
It's not like a real serious thing saying that I'm trying to live this Chinese lifestyle.
It's more like.
This is some kind of popular thing that's that many people are doing right now.
That's coming from China.
And I'm participating in this new trend of trying more Asian related Chinese Chinese things.
Would you agree with that, Indiana?
Was that a good breakdown?
Yeah, definitely.
And I think what is also important in these memes and you met me at a very Chinese time in my life there's some humor here where it's like yeah, it's kind of silly that you're really obsessing and going through this phase perhaps, of being interested in Chinese culture.
But
Yeah, there's a lot of this sort of idolizing or real appreciation that's coming through for what people are thinking as a very attractive culture or things to be including in their life.
So I think that, although these are all very jokey memes, I don't think it's making fun of or being negative towards Chinese culture.
I think certainly many people might take them in different ways and might actually think they're not so good, not so great memes.
But I think the intention at least is generally not to be putting down Chinese culture but yeah, to be like celebrating it.
Yeah, I agree.
In my opinion, when I see these memes, although they are tongue in cheek, although they are playful and a little bit humorous, the intent is not to be offensive.
The intent is to say, oh, people in China do something cool.
And I want to copy that a little bit because I think some specific aspect of Chinese culture actually is really awesome.
And maybe we don't do these things in the West and maybe we should.
Maybe we should be drinking more green tea.
Maybe we should be doing some morning exercise.
Maybe we should be taking really good care of our skin using high quality skincare products this kind of thing.
So I think definitely it's not meant to be offensive.
It's meant to be appreciative of the culture.
And Indiana, I think now we should segue into talking about why.
Why did these three memes emerge at roughly the same time?
Because I think it's not just an isolated thing.
I think there might be some cultural shift or something happening behind the scenes that has pushed these memes to the forefront in Western culture over the last year or so.
It's an interesting question, and I can't say that we have all of the answers.
Of course, we're not sociologists.
We don't study these kinds of things, but we can just give our feelings and our opinions about it.
And I don't know.
What do you think, Indiana?
Why have these memes come about?
Yeah, so of course, TikTok is a Chinese company.
And that has been such a popular app.
I don't have to tell you guys, listeners like it's, every it's it's made such a huge impact in pop culture and internet culture.
And through TikTok.
I think a lot of people probably got exposure to a lot of Chinese pop culture, different things, that way.
And then also when there was this big TikTok band scare, I guess like last year, I believe it was last year.
There was a big, how should I say, like exodus or transition.
A bunch of people were planning on moving from TikTok to Red Note, which is this other Chinese social media platform.
And of course, people are still using TikTok.
This was sort of a false alarm.
But I think through using that app a lot of people got some even further exposure to Chinese culture and things like that.
And then finally, like I think the really main thing that I feel is behind a lot of these memes is just appreciation for, like I don't know, in some ways a very functioning high-tech country, like with high-speed rail, which is again which we mentioned earlier.
We have absolutely none of that in North America.
And like sort of seeing these really these things that people are like kind of excited about, like being a high tech country with a lot going on culturally and in tech.
And then there's just all sorts of crazy things going on in the world.
And it feels very unstable.
And like the political situation in the United States feels very chaotic.
And so I think it could be very attractive to just be like, wow.
I'm going to China max like this is like my my new favorite thing.
Wow.
Seems so great.
Right.
Like, I don't know.
I think that there's a lot of that feeling online.
So that would be my my theory.
Have I missed something key here, Andrew?
What do you what do you think?
Yeah, I think there are a lot of different factors at play.
It's not just one reason why these memes have become popular.
So I definitely think the American political situation and some of the chaos that is happening politically in the States has made the grass look greener on the other side, especially when all you're seeing is an idealized view of the country, right?
A lot of the things that you're seeing on social media look really positive about China.
You're seeing these awesome high-speed trains, these high-tech vehicles, Gadgets like robots.
You know, we're seeing these really high tech Chinese robots, other high tech products, really huge cities with awesome lights and stuff.
So it looks really like this high tech, awesome, advanced country.
So that's one aspect of it as well.
And of course, every country is going to have good aspects and bad aspects, right?
I don't think there's any country around the world where you're like life is perfect there, everything's good.
And so when you're only seeing the good and you're not really seeing the bad, then it's easy to make it seem like this ideal place.
So that factor is at play for sure.
I'm also wondering Indiana, if maybe this is at play and that is like younger kids these days, like maybe the Gen Z, Gen Zers and below, are much more focused on health and wellness compared to previous generations.
Right.
I think there's been a huge drop in younger people drinking alcohol, for example.
At the same time, we're seeing more people interested in exercise.
You know runnings going through this boom.
A lot of people are running and doing all different sorts of exercising as well.
And so a lot of these Chinese related memes are also connected to that, right?
They're about health wellness, taking care of your skin, doing some kind of spiritual practice like Tai Chi or Qigong or something like this.
And so I'm wondering if that connects with the younger audience in the West.
They're like, I don't like partying and drinking alcohol like that's kind of lame.
Instead, I want to feel good and I want to take care of myself.
And people in China are doing that.
So that's that's perfect.
So I think that's at play as well.
And I don't know for sure about this.
I'd have to do some research.
Maybe one of our listeners would be more knowledgeable and could understand.
Enlighten us and guys, if you do have a comment to make about this as well.
This is a good time to promote our discord community.
So we have this great discord server where we chat about each culips episode, and we'll definitely be having a conversation about this episode over on our discord.
So make sure to join the conversation and let us know your thoughts and opinions.
But I know that different countries around the world invest in promoting their country.
Canada does this.
Famously, Canada has been buying billboards in the USA to promote Canada.
I don't know if you knew about that, Indiana.
I did not.
Our government buys advertising in the USA to promote Canada and Canadian products and Canadian tourism.
I know the country that I live in now, South Korea, they invest in their cultural products.
They invest in K-pop and K-drama and K-food and promote this to the world as a way of promoting their soft power.
We call these kind of cultural products soft power.
And I would be shocked if China is not doing this as well.
This is something countries do, right?
They want to promote their image abroad and to build their cultural products and to promote their soft power, and i i imagine china is probably doing this as well.
So maybe china would be investing and spending some money in this regard to make their country more popular around the world.
So i wonder if that factor isn't at at play as well.
Yeah, I could definitely see that.
Yeah, soft power, as you mentioned, it's a great term to know.
And like the, what is it called?
The Korean wave?
Is that right?
With like this huge influence of Korean pop culture that you've seen, like with beauty K-beauty K-pop, K-dramas over the past couple decades.
I mean, it has meant...
So much economically for Korea.
So absolutely, this sort of PR, world stage public relations is so valuable to different countries.
Yeah, I would not be surprised.
I agree with you there.
And I wonder maybe it's China's time to shine.
Like, it's interesting to see the different phases of Asian countries being in the spotlight.
So back in the day, Hong Kong, Hong Kong pop culture, Hong Kong movies were really popular in the Asian world.
At least they were like the Hollywood of Asia.
And then it changed to Japan and through the 80s and 90s, I think Japan was the big country in Asia.
And definitely Japan, still has a huge impact with their cultural products, with video games and animation.
And yeah, their characters and to an extent, maybe their music and other products as well, but definitely animation and video games.
And then, of course, Korea maybe is in the spotlight right now and have been for the last at least 20 years or so, with K-pop and K-beauty and K-food and all of the K products.
Maybe it's China's turn.
Maybe they're going to be the next one.
Maybe they're making a push right now and...
We'll see what happens, but it's just an interesting trend that I've noticed over the last year or so here about these Chinese-related memes developing.
I thought we would let everyone else know about this.
I'm curious, Indiana, maybe before we just wrap up here.
Are there any things that you have done in your life?
Have you done any China maxing?
Are you a Chinese baddie now?
I don't think so, but I do sort of kind of jump on the bandwagon of this joke.
Like whenever I hear about something really awful happening in the US, I say I guess it really is China's century, you know.
Like there's sort of this yeah feeling frustrated humor that is popular on the internet right now and perhaps among my friends yeah, where we're like ah.
Things do not look so great.
And I guess yeah, seeing it as China's century or China maxing is one way of expressing that sort of frustration and then looking towards something that might be comforting or interesting.
Yeah.
Yeah, great.
Okay.
Well guys, I think that's going to bring us to the end of this discussion here for this catchword episode.
A little bit of a different style of catchword episode for you, but it's this interesting cultural trend that's emerging.
And we'd like I said, love to hear from you, your thoughts, your opinions.
What's going on in your country?
Are there other like I'd be really curious, Indiana.
Maybe we have some listeners in Spain, for example, or in Colombia, for example.
Are they seeing these similar kind of Chinese memes in their countries, in their cultures emerge?
That would be really fascinating to find out.
So I'd love to hear from our listeners around the world.
The best place to share your thoughts and opinions with us is on our Discord community.
It's free for everyone to join.
It's where our community gathers and we practice our English together and we connect and communicate with each other.
The link to join is in the description for this episode.
And we will look forward to reading your comments there.
All right, Indiana, let's take off.
Let's wrap this one up.
Thank you so much for your help today.
Absolutely.
Good talking, trying to maxing with you, Andrew.
Yes.
And everyone, please take care.
We'll talk to you next time.
Goodbye.
Bye.
