Takeaway Chinese, where you can take some Chinese away and experience progress day by day.
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你好,欢迎收听随行汉语。 Welcome to Takeaway Chinese.
I'm Niu Honglin with Steve in the studio.
Hello, Steve.
Hello there.
How are you doing?
Thanks for having me back.
Of course, of course.
Today we're going to talk about a relatively serious issue, but hopefully not only are we going to provide them with some Good Chinese words, expressions and ideas, but also some Chinese concepts, the kind of wisdom, the ways from ancient Chinese philosophy to combat negative emotions.
I like that a lot.
This is probably going to be new terminology for a lot of our listeners, because our topic today is something that probably isn't often discussed in your daily kind of Chinese life.
Yes, so we're talking about 负面情绪.
Fu mian qing shu.
Fu is negative, and mian is kind of like saying the area, so the negative part, the negative aspect.
And qing shu is emotion.
So fu mian qing shu, negative emotions.
Fu mian qing shu.
Yes.
So if you are interested in Chinese culture and you want to get a grip on the Chinese language, then this is the show for you.
Stick with us for 30 minutes and you'll soon see the rewards.
But now, let's provide you with some free Chinese for takeaway.
When it comes to negative emotions, what are some emotions that you think of?
Anger.
Anger.
分怒。 分怒。 分怒 is the relatively more official one, whereas you can also say 生气。
Sheng is generate, and qi is air.
So together, it's kind of like you're generating an angry feeling in your body.
You can understand it that way, but...
I don't think the word is meant to be understood by separating these two characters.
Oh, okay.
So you put them together and it means anger.
Anger, yeah.
生气 Yes, or 愤怒.
愤怒 is even more angry.
Oh, okay.
It's a level up.
It's a level up.
Furious.
Almost, yes.
Frustration, that's another negative feeling.
I think a proper Chinese translation would be 沮丧.
For frustration, it's more like you don't know what to do in this kind of situation.
It feels like you've exhausted all of the possible ways to deal with it, but still there's nothing you can do to change the situation.
Yeah, despite your effort, nothing will change.
Yes.
And the thing is, 沮丧 is that emotion, but you can also understand it as 懊恼.
So it's the feeling.
I don't think it's precise enough.
I mean the Chinese word is precise enough to express the idea that it feels like you've exhausted all of your resources okay, but definitely it's the feeling of ah, it's very negative, i don't know what i can do, and it's making me not precisely angry, but again frustrated, but not happy, not happy at all.
So that's frustration.
Another one would definitely be sad.
Sure.
Beisheng.
Beisheng.
Beisheng.
Beisheng is the feeling that is sad, that is a little powerless in a way.
Sad like.
To the point where you will cry?
Like that level of sadness?
Or just a little... No, just sad.
Just a little down.
Just a little down.
Or it's more like a general term for sad.
Okay.
What about depressed?
Oh, depressed.
That is... This one is kind of...
Interesting as a word, because yiyu, it definitely is a kind of emotion.
But if you take it to a clinically diagnosed level, it's a disease.
And yiyuzheng, that is the name of the disease.
I'm curious, depressed, is that an old Chinese word as well?
The reason I ask is because I wonder, in society thousands of years ago, if people were able to identify those types of emotions, if it was something that people discussed.
I think it's a really good point you're making because yes, it is a word that has been existing in the chinese language world for a really long time, yet it was not veiled as serious, as proper as today.
Previously, people would use this in a very much light-hearted way.
They say, 我都要抑郁了, I am so depressed.
But that is talking about this situation This is making me not happy.
And this is, it's a frustrating situation.
It's a very lighthearted way.
Until these days, people started to realize depression is a serious issue.
And they stopped using this word to describe talk about things that are not that serious, so that people listening to it, recognizing it, would be able to view it properly if I'm explaining it.
You are explaining it well.
I think in English it still does get used a little lightheartedly when we're referring to something.
What I mean is when you're not talking about yourself like I'm depressed, If you say like oh, that's depressing.
Like if you get a little bit older and you get some wrinkles on your face and you see it, you could say like oh, that's depressing.
And it doesn't necessarily carry that weight.
You see the difference?
I totally see it.
And it happens in Chinese society as well.
But I think it's gradually getting better, in the sense that, no matter how we use it, the key point is to recognize those emotions and being able to deal with them properly.
And one of the most powerful ways to deal with those emotions is through talk.
Definitely, because we're talking about depressing.
Another thing that is quite common and quite commonly found on people who tend to get depressed or easy vulnerable to depressing feelings is anxious.
Anxious.
焦虑.
焦虑.
Yes.
Jiao lu is also quite common in this day and age in modern society.
You're always anxious about something.
Anxiety.
Yes, it happens quite a lot.
And we mentioned it.
The 焦虑情绪 and 抑郁情绪 are quite often found together in one person.
Those who tend to get anxious would also be vulnerable to depressing.
Right.
And it has a lot to do with what happened in life, about anxiety whether or not their relationships with their friends and families are good.
And sometimes even with a change of season.
Yeah.
Anxiety is a really powerful feeling and it can follow you like a dark cloud over your head.
That's for some instances, but then in other instances, for example, if people have a panic attack, which is the ultimate form of anxiety then that can suddenly pop up out of nowhere, which makes it even more stressful.
Yeah, anxiety is tough to deal with.
Definitely.
And I want to ask you, do you think nervous is a kind of negative feeling or negative emotion?
紧张?
Jin zhang is nervous and it can also be too tied up.
So if you talk about emotions, it's nervous.
But if you talk about your muscle, it can also be that your muscles are too tightened up together and are not relaxing enough.
So that's jin zhang.
Like tense.
Tense, yes.
Do I think it's negative?
Well, it can be because I think there's a fine line between being nervous and being anxious.
And being anxious can be a positive thing in certain contexts as well.
Nervous energy can work in your favor if you know how to use it properly.
But if it overcomes you, if it becomes overwhelming... then obviously it's not.
What I mean by being in your favor or can be used in your favor.
For example, if a student or somebody has a presentation well, it's obvious and natural that you will feel some amount of nervousness before doing that presentation.
An athlete before a big game.
Even a pro athlete will tell you that they feel nervous before a big match.
But they use that to fuel their performance.
So if you're able to do that, and that's a skill, I think, then it can work for you.
Do you still feel nervous every time you're on the show or go air?
No, but I do feel nervous if I have to stand on a stage.
Me too.
For about five minutes and then it's gone.
Yes.
And the moment you start, you're in the zone, you're in the flow.
Everything is well and you feel like you are controlling this.
Yeah.
But in the beginning it's.
It's a little nerve wracking, but not to the point that it stops me from doing what I'm supposed to do.
I think that stems from the fact that I know that there are.
Oh, this is very personal.
But I think it stems from the fact that I know that there are expectations about me.
I know that, because I've done the work that I do for a very long time, that people expect a certain standard from me.
And, you know, I'm human.
I don't want to meet that standard every single day.
Or I'm afraid that I can't meet that standard.
But that's just self-inflicted pressure.
That's only coming from me.
So I acknowledge that.
I realize that.
And I try to use that to fuel a better version of me.
Yes.
And you mentioned the word panic.
Panic, in my opinion, is definitely a relatively negative kind of feeling.
In Chinese we say 恐慌 is from afraid of something.
The fear, which is another negative feeling, is getting the jitterish feeling a little bit, Not knowing what to do, and a little bit here, a little bit there.
Don't know where to start or where just where to start dealing with the situation.
So 恐慌 panic.
I think panicking is... It's a terrible feeling.
Yes.
Yeah.
Because panicking carries the connotation of I don't know what to do.
I'm afraid of the situation, but I have no way to change it.
Well, not only that, but if you're experiencing extreme panic because of whatever situation.
That's fear, isn't it?
There are different contexts for panic, for that feeling.
Have you ever had a panic attack before?
Not really.
Not that I remember of.
Or maybe it's because I cannot identify it properly.
Yeah.
Panic attacks are from.
What I understand is that you have trouble breathing or, All of a sudden, your level of anxiety has exploded in your body.
They don't necessarily last that long from what I understand.
And again, I'm not an expert on this topic. but really, really terrible for a period of time.
And it can be triggered by different things in different ways.
Sometimes standing on a stage would trigger a panic attack for people, even the most experienced, those who really really know what they're about to talk about.
It still happens.
It has nothing to do with Whether or not you're prepared enough, you have enough experience, or if you have enough confidence.
It's just something that might happen to some people.
I think identifying those feelings in that particular moment is really the best thing that you can do.
And identifying that you are experiencing, what you are experiencing, allows you to overcome that feeling.
So if you are really panicking about something, if you're, you know again, to use the presentation example if you, if you have to do that, but you feel like
I'm not going to do a great job.
Oh, my gosh.
And your brain starts to spin out of control a little bit with negative thoughts.
If you recognize that that's happening to you in that moment you can actively say to yourself stop, take a breath, take a deep breath, count to 10, whatever your tricks might be, but to help you get out of that feeling.
But if you're not able to sorry to interrupt you but if you're not able to identify those feelings, then it's really hard to escape.
Yes.
And identifying the negative feeling and knowing exactly what triggered you to have those emotions is the first step of dealing with negative feelings, all kinds of negative feelings and negative emotions.
It's not only for anxiety or for panic attacks, but also for sheer sadness, for fear, and it's not only for one time or one kind of feeling.
It's also for sometimes in life we encounter sad incidents.
We encounter we definitely in our life we would face the departure of a loved one, especially the elder generation that'll happen.
And sometimes even a sudden change in life.
Your best friend is moving to The other side of the earth.
Yes, you're happy for them.
They're having they're starting their new lives.
But it's for you something sad, especially before the invention of Internet.
You're losing touch with this person forever.
And all these kind of things can trigger negative emotions.
Not emotions but, I think, period of time in your life and being able to identify it, knowing exactly what you're sad about, unhappy about, fear for, is the first step to deal with it.
Yeah.
And deal with it is, I think, an important thing to do, to not ignore it.
From what I've learned about dealing with emotions, and it really is a skill.
It's something that you have to learn how to do.
I don't think, and this is just my opinion, I don't think human beings inherently know how to process their emotions, particularly negative emotions.
So you have to learn how to do that.
From what I've learned and from what I've read that experts say about that is that you're not supposed to try to ignore your negative feelings.
Bury it.
Yeah.
Yeah.
Bury it deep down inside, because it'll just come back and manifest itself in some way, shape or form.
You might snap at a taxi driver some way for someday for apparently no reason whatsoever.
But that could be a deep emotion or feeling about something else that you just kind of buried and hoped would disappear.
So don't ignore your feelings.
Think about how they are affecting you.
Acknowledge them.
They say that a And then work on letting them go.
There are so many different ways.
And I think they work for different scenarios and work for different people.
I was thinking about channeling it to exercise, to doing something.
Because sometimes, when someone is in a very, very bad place, not thinking about it is the temporary fix.
We're not suggesting that you should bury it, but that for a short period of time, right after what trauma you happened, you can start living a more regular life or more routine kind of life.
Wake up in the morning earlier and do exercise and eat your lunch.
And then do whatever, just regularly for a period of time, so you're back on track and then deal with emotion.
Yeah, you need like it.
I think they call those like a healthy release.
You need to get your energy out, your feelings out, your frustration out somehow.
And that can be through exercise.
It can be through a number of different things, depending on what you like.
In Chinese, we say 发泄.
发泄.
发 is to get it out.
And 泄 is also carries the feeling of release.
So 发泄情绪 is like letting it out.
But there are so many ways to let it out.
And if we say 发泄情绪 without a context, it's kind of like also talking about releasing it out to a complete innocent person, which is not good.
So find a good way to release the energy, release negative feelings.
Healthy release.
Yes, healthy release.
That's very important.
Yeah.
Don't scream at a stranger.
Don't.
And another thing that Steve has already mentioned is that you can use, you know, conversation with your close friends.
Yeah, that's easy for many people.
And for many people, that's one of the hardest things to do.
I think that's a skill as well.
Being able to verbalize, in a way that's effective, about how you're feeling to another person is something that's very much worth learning how to do, I think.
Yes, yes.
Having those negative feelings but not being able to effectively communicate them to someone else would be something that you should work on, i think.
How about crying in your opinion?
Yeah i'm, i'm not much of a crier.
A lot of men are not.
Well, i'm not proud to say that necessarily i cry at weird things.
I'll cry at like a tv commercial.
That's not weird.
It is weird for me Because that doesn't seem like an appropriate place to let tears out.
Music will overwhelm me sometimes.
But I didn't grow up in a house where people were crying a lot.
So I just didn't see a lot of it.
And then I grew up playing, you know, like, quote unquote, tough music.
Of course.
Where you're not supposed to like hockey and baseball and those types of things.
Yes.
But of course I cry.
Every human being cries.
Yes.
And the reason I'm asking about this is, well, to start with, 哭.
哭. That's cry.
哭 or 哭泣.
Again, both are properly used in Chinese language.
It's just 哭泣 is a bit more official.
It's two character words and you use it in relatively more like written Chinese a bit more.
And also tears would be 眼泪.
Yes, it's very important because I have heard that when scientists do research on the tears, that you cry out.
When people cry out because their eyes got poked a little bit and or they're yawning to the point that they're crying a little bit, The tears do not carry a lot of substance in it.
It's just water or with a little salt.
When someone is crying because they're so sad and they're really crying for something.
There are a lot of different types of hormones, different types of chemicals in the tear.
That is very interesting.
And that means... when you're crying because of your strong emotions.
You're sending out or releasing the toxic chemicals in your body.
It's a healthy release.
It definitely is.
And that's why we say in English, we say like to have a good cry.
Yes.
Meaning you're just... You've got a lot going on inside and you need to get it out.
Yeah.
And for... the tough men out there do not be afraid of, you know, crying once a while.
It's good for you.
Tough ladies too.
If you feel, if you're not one of those people, it's okay to do for sure.
Yes.
But don't cry too much because, according to traditional Chinese medicine, No matter how positive or negative the emotion is, if you're taking it to a certain level, if you're taking it to extreme, it's always bad for your health, for your overall well-being.
That is an interesting idea, isn't it?
Being too... Emotional.
Huh.
It's not good for you.
It's not good for you.
In a good way too, right?
What do they say?
Being overly, well, the term I think is toxic positivity.
Ah, there's a term for it.
Yeah, that's where you'll find or you'll look for the absolute positive stuff in any situation.
Even in situations where you shouldn't be looking for positive things, because not every situation has positive aspects to it.
So when you do that too much, to a degree where you're not even willing to acknowledge the negative side of something,
They call that toxic positivity.
Yeah, I think that is a different emotion.
That is to say that you avoid all the negative feelings and you try to be positive all the time.
In Chinese.
The theory is that we believe the eternal injury.
There are eternal injury that could happen to you because of extreme emotions.
And it's talking about, for example, excessive emotions damage specific function of organs.
So I say that because it does not affect the organs directly, but different organs carry different functions in a holistic view in your body.
And that extreme emotion would hurt that function.
So the idea is that anger harms the liver, overjoy harms the heart, overthinking harms the spleen, grief harms the lungs and fear harms the kidneys.
So that's so.
Again, that's not talking about the specific organs.
It's not saying that if you are very, very happy, your heart would dysfunction a certain way.
It's more like talking about the kind of aspects these organs are in charge of according to traditional chinese theories medical theories.
I've never heard that before.
So in chinese you're not supposed to be overly happy or overly sad, but any moderate emotions are encouraged.
That's the way that people are kind of raised to conduct themselves.
Never be too happy, never be too sad.
Yes.
And we even have, yes, we even have ancient stories talking about someone.
But, you know, the imperial examination is very important in Chinese literati's culture.
And some people would spend their entire life taking part in the examination, hoping to be a scholar in court.
And there's even the story that this person, after taking the examination so many times Two that he's already a elder citizen of the country once he finally got it passed.
And he's so so, so happy, too happy, that he's just totally lost his mind because of the extreme happiness.
This is such an interesting cultural aspect that I didn't know before.
But now I'm thinking back upon my experiences thus far in China and my interactions with Chinese citizens.
And I've noticed that. is that people are quite reserved.
You don't necessarily see, for example, in America or Canada or the UK or wherever Australia, Western countries where you'll find these very outgoing, flamboyant personalities, over-the-top personalities.
I haven't seen one person act like that in China in any context, even out in a social setting.
I haven't seen anyone act like that.
And I didn't think anything negative about it.
But now that you say it, it just kind of makes sense.
People tend to behave themselves in a very, very reserved fashion.
I think it's also because we believe that one you take the emotion to the extreme, you kind of controlled or at least affected by the emotion.
Instead of you feeling those feelings, it's those feelings that are taking you, that are leading, that are controlling you in a certain sense.
So maybe do not go to the extreme.
We believe in Zhong Yong moderate.
We believe in stay in the middle, stay in the place where things are more balanced.
We believe in harmony.
And, at the end of the day, I think we are not saying we do not encourage people to enjoy life, to be able to having those feelings and really experience, because if you really think about it, life is about different types of experiences.
Oh, definitely.
Yeah.
Hopefully the more the merrier.
Yeah.
So having experiences are important.
It's just don't take it to the point that it hurts you.
And when there is a negative feeling, a negative feeling emotion, identify it, deal with it and find a way to get it over with so that you can have your life back, have the control over your life.
I love that.
I forget where I learned it. or where I heard it, but I love it.
It's a saying that says you can't control the chaos around you.
You can only control your reaction to that chaos.
And it's just so, so, so true.
Yes.
And that brings us to the end of today's takeaway Chinese.
Thank you so much for listening.
I'm Neil Holden with Steve and we'll see you next time.
Thank you very much.
See you again.
This is the China Code, where the language meets the moment.
Today's phrase is 开团秒跟.
Have you ever played an online game where one teammate suddenly rushes forward and somehow the whole team follows instantly?
That moment of instant coordination is what Chinese gamers call 开团秒根.
Let's break it down.
开 means to open or to initiate.
团 refers to a group or a team and in this context it essentially refers to coordinated team battle.
Miao means seconds, as in time, literally one second.
Here it suggests immediacy.
And gen means to follow.
So kai tuan miao gen translates to one leads, all follow.
A moment when one person makes the first move, everyone else responds right away.
It originally came from gaming culture but, like many internet expressions in China, it gradually moved beyond the screen.
Today, young people use 開團秒根 in everyday life.
You wouldn't use it in a formal meeting, but in group chats or on social media, it's very common.
For example, at the Temple of Heaven in Beijing, a site where ancient emperors once offered prayers for blessings and bountiful harvests, one student, still buzzing with post-exam freedom, suddenly dropped to the ground.
Boom for a goofy photo.
No plan, no signal, just a person doing his thing randomly.
But here's where it gets really interesting.
People nearby started noticing and, one by one, like they're in some kind of unspoken flash mob challenge, they just joined in quietly.
Strangers. flat on the ground, pure vibes.
That is Kai Tuan Miao Gen in real life.
Not blind imitation, not social pressure, just spontaneous harmony.
And you can also use Kai Tuan Miao Gen in friendships too.
For example, let's say a friend comes to you with some crazy idea, Instead of asking a million questions, you just join in.
開團秒更 is not about following blindly.
It's about trusting the timing and the people around you.
So, whether it's a group photo or jumping into your friend's wild idea, sometimes when the timing feels right, you don't overanalyze.
Just 开团秒更.
If you enjoyed this episode, please leave us a comment and a 5-star rating.
You can also watch the video version on CRI Learn Chinese Facebook page.
Until next time, this has been The China Code.
Another phrase, another window into today's China.
