Take away Chinese where you can take some Chinese away and experience progress day by day Take away Chinese we will promise you a difference You how when I showed in facing hi you welcome to take away Chinese I'm your Holland with Steve Hatherley in the studio.
Hello, Steve. Hello.
How are you doing today?
I'm doing very well.
Hello to you too. Recently I've discovered a new Let's say stories of entertainment, of happiness.
Oh do tell. Yeah, yeah, yeah.
It's something new for me.
I'm doing for the year 2025, I decided to insert a little bit of a surprise element in my life.
So I bought this bag of stickers, and they all have inspirational, nice sayings on each one.
And every morning I would pick one.
I do not know what that is.
I put them backwards up so that I do not see the ones, and it's kind of like a lucky draw, and I got the sentence of my day.
What was it today? The sentence of my day is that the universe is supporting me in its own way.
It has a plan, well, that's the translation.
It has a plan for me and all I needed to do is to embrace all the possibilities.
Yeah. Now you're quite an impatient person.
How do you know? In the limited amount of time I've spent with you, I can recognize that.
Do you actually have the patience to wait 24 hours until the following day when you get your new message?
Because I can totally see you.
Just say if you get a message you don't like.
What do you mean the universe has a plan for me?
Let me check tomorrow's.
Well, I haven't done that yet but I can see myself doing that some day.
Yeah. That's fun. Now, this is an interesting cultural talking point.
It sounds like a fortune cookie which Westerners probably think is a traditional Chinese thing, the fortune cookie, when in fact, there's nothing to do with China and fortune cookies.
That is a completely Western Chinese food thing.
Yes, yes. Fortune cookie, we do not even have a Chinese name for a fortune cookie.
We will just College's Xin Yun Bingan direct translation.
This is not good. Well anyways, you're right.
But I understand how fortune cookies got popular in the Western culture or Western recognition of Chinese culture.
It was always a Chinese restaurant.
When you finish your meal, they would always give you a fortune cookie.
Anyways, I understand the element though, it's that little like surprise element, the anticipating for something, Not knowing it.
You get that message.
That's why I said what you're doing in 2025 has that kind of element to it.
Yes and I didn't used to like this when I want something I just, you know, go get it.
And now I get the feeling of even sometimes when I got the bag of, you know, stickers, I actually read some of those and I kind of liked some of those.
And for me - Wait, you've read them all already?
Not all of them, just some of them!
You're not supposed to read any of them.
You're right, but the idea is that I kind of know what I wanted when I'm trying to pick it out.
You were looking for it.
I was not looking for it, I was hoping for it.
And that is the kind of sentiment that is shared by a lot of young Chinese people these days.
They know what are certain things that they want or maybe a collection of dolls of for for example toys or notebook or any kind of artifact, there are, for example, five types and there might be two, we call it hidden types, that is they do not, you do not get to know what the hidden types are until you actually got it.
And then you don't get to pick the ones you want, you have to buy them in a box and you have to unpack the box to discover what is the one that you have just bought.
Is this our topic for today?
Unboxing... Oh what, what are they called here in China?
The blind boxes? Yes, we call it the blind boxes...
And the blind box in Chinese is 頔温.
頔温? Yes, so 頔温 is a box.
And 頔 cares the meaning of blind.
Or for example, visually challenged.
So 頔温 means that it's a box that you buy but you do not get to see what's inside.
Yeah I hear people talk about this a lot.
This must be a big part of 2024, 2025 kind of fun pop culture stuff.
Yes it's definitely a pop culture stuff.
I've heard of live streams happening where people will purchase these boxes and the whole idea.
And because you don't know what's inside, but you're purchasing it anyway.
And, well, I mean, you have an idea because it's related to some particular theme, right?
It's not like it's completely random.
But some of these blind boxes can be food, some of them...
Some of them can be toys.
It just depends on what the theme is for that particular thing.
Yes. So that mang k earlier is going to be the topic of today's takeaway Chinese.
Huh, have you ever bought a food blind box or a blind food box?
Have you ever purchased one of those before?
Yes, yes, I actually have but they are leftover blind boxes So what happens if you I mean because when people choose what they want to eat, it's because they want to eat it So when you're choosing a food blind box, you don't know what's inside What are so many different types of blind boxes and we're gonna talk about all of them Okay, fair enough.
So for our dear listeners, 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 to soon see the rewards.
And for more fun Chinese learning, follow our Facebook page, Learn Chinese, to watch many fun videos and live streams.
But now, let's provide you with some free Chinese for take -away.
It just occurred to me if takeaway Chinese in the future are take -away Chinese blind boxes, you do not get to know what you're learning, you just have to tune in and then you discover what are the words of the human topic of today.
It's like every episode of take -away Chinese is a blind box.
Yes, but can you understand the excitement, the attraction behind or around blind boxes.
I can, because it's almost...
well first, you're drawing on that human emotion of anticipation and excitement.
But then you've got the mystery, the air of mystery, because you don't know what's inside, so I do understand attraction because it's the element of surprise.
definitely and there's a second reason I understand when I was young I used to collect hockey cards and of course in your collection some cards are more common than other cards so when you go to the store and you buy your little pack of cards there's that air of mystery there's the element of surprise which cards am I going to get this time which one am I not going to get that I really want, then you've got the feeling of disappointment if you don't get the one you want, but that feeling of elation if you do, so I totally get what's behind this.
And in a society where actually I think in any societies we give meaning to things, they do not really carry meaning on its own, it's that when a certain number of people decided that they mean something to them, the things started to mean things.
What I'm saying here is that when it comes to blind boxes, one thing the very first action with these things is to buy the black boxes.
And then you actually, when you get the item that you don't want, but someone else might want it, you can trade with them.
Yes, exactly. You can exchange the type with them.
And later on, when there is a market for these blind boxes or the items in these blind boxes, actually there would be a price tag on each and every different type of the same collection.
And all that, when it grows to that scale, I think manga blind boxes, it's just much more than one person's one type of collection.
It's a whole industry almost.
Yeah. And you see this in different spaces without the words blind box attach.
What I mean is if you're a sticker collector, I've seen this a lot, where you go and you buy some gummies from the convenience store and inside the gummies there's a sticker in there and it's part of a collection.
So, any type of promotion like that, then it's still got that blind box element.
When you open up the gummies, you don't know what sticker you're gonna get.
Sometimes you'll get a replicate of something you already have.
But sometimes you'll get a new one and then you're excited.
So, this is evident in different spots in our lives.
We just call it different things, I think.
Yes, and one, the, let's say, the industry or the market of a certain collectible items in these blind boxes got mature enough.
Actually, I think, like you said, it's definitely one element of pop culture that is quite popular in the year 2004, 2005, but it's actually much earlier than that, the idea of blind put in sticks in a small barrel, and then you pull one out on that stick, there would be one sentence talking about maybe your day, like what I was doing for my sticker.
And there would be this fortune teller describing or explaining what's on it.
So the action of to pull something out of that small barrel, carrying the idea of to get your portion or your version of your love.
out there. So ,Vchou Meng He is definitely one thing or ,chaou qiu for example, if you say, w come on, I bought a blind box and hopefully I can...it's like a lucky draw.
Draw the lucky one for me kind of idea.
So ,qol this action, this verb is related to the Meng He industry.
And going back to my previous point was that Chōman -hū, this action, has been popular for a while.
And I suddenly realized these days that the items, the little stuff, the different types of goods in these blind boxes are much, much prettier, exhibit, and nicely made than several years ago.
So the industry is definitely developing just on its own.
Yeah that's probably because it's not just about what's inside anymore.
It's about the unboxing, it's about the process of finding out what's inside.
Unboxing videos have become so popular online and so I guess the mange industry realized oh it's not just about what's in the box it's the process of opening the box and digging it out for the very first time.
Yes. And when you dig it out, you want the item to look perfect under the camera.
So you want to make them beautiful.
You want to put a lot of artistic thoughts in it and you want people to actually cherish them as their own treasure and put them in beautiful transparent boxes instead of blind boxes on their bookshelf To show it off to their friends and making their friends also a fan of chō mange.
That's why, and I understand why this is such an attractive hobby for people, and I can understand why this would be maybe a little bit addictive as well.
Because when I was collecting hockey cards when I was a kid, I couldn't wait to get to the store to get my next little pack.
Of course. And when it comes to mange we already know a verb that is chou, it carries the meaning of the lucky draw – draw it out idea and another verb would definitely be chai, like you said, the unboxing, so chai is unbox – chai, yes.
So we can also say chai, so tak' is to open up, but if you think about it, chai is less it's vivid, then chai, chai carries the idea that you're unboxing it and you cannot wait, so you're tearing everything apart.
Chai, chai liu for example, unboxing your present, it's also the same verb.
chai, yes. So it's like unwrapping would be chai.
And chai, unboxing can be chai or da -kai or open a book, dakai, benshuu that's chai.
Both verbs work. I always ask you this question because I'm always curious to know if the logic carries over.
And what I've learned from you recently is that the logic doesn't always carry over.
So chai means to unwrap so can we use this when we're talking about peeling fruits?
For example, like a banana.
How do you say banana in Chinese?
Shiang chow chai. No. Because I was thinking piu is the unwrapping of the banana in a sense.
And already you know piu is the wrong wrapping of the bananas just like Again, we have the correlations, the fixed ones.
So they share similar meanings yet you have to use certain verb for a certain noun.
Understood. So, bǒisiang ziǎo, bǒ chái liǔu, chái mangehǎ.
Chái xie is another one, but I think this one is a bit far away.
It carries the meaning of disassemble.
To take apart. Piece by piece.
So chái, that verb is limited to things perhaps that are inside a package or covered in some sort of wrapping.
Now that I think of yes.
chocolate. Chai chokolie.
Works. Okay, found some logic that works.
Yes and you can say but I chai cholai, so I unwrap it and take it out.
Cholai is take something out.
Okay. So having that idea.
Chai chai chokolie.
Yes, and another word that is definitely related to really closely related to the blind box theme is xilie.
Xi yeah means series series.
Yes. How's that related to the blind boxes?
Because now blind boxes are very advanced and they have different selections different series of items.
So in one series you might have for example ten relatively common ones and two very rare ones and this is a collection or a series called Xi Li and the goal of a lot of collectors would be to get the entire series.
Yeah. So if there's 10, usually, I don't know, seven are common.
Then the three, maybe two are difficult to get.
And then that last one is extremely difficult.
Yes. And the extremely difficult one or the really hard to get one, the rare edition.
In In Chinese, we call them yin chan quan.
Yin chan quan. Yes, yin carries the meaning of invisible, and chan means to hide somewhere, actively or passively.
So yin chan would be the hidden, the hidden one.
Usually when it comes to blind boxes, the hidden ones, you would have the common ones printed on the boxes, showcasing we have, for example, like you said, seven common ones and you would pick, like I like the black one better, the black one looks prettier to me, I hope I can get the black one first.
You would have the 7 ones printed on the box yet they tell you we have 3 hidden ones.
Now you get the idea of hidden because they do not tell you what it looks like in advance.
Yeah, further increasing your curiosity.
So the rare additions are relatively prettier, nicer and if you're a collector yet you just cannot stand the idea of buying more blind boxes.
You want to go straight after the one that you do not have.
They are also the expensive one.
Of course, the hard to get ones are always the most expensive.
Yes. And with all these different types, there is another, it's kind of like a measure word that I'd like to introduce.
Yes. Yes, means style.
And it's kind of like a design, a type again, a measure word.
So you can, when you're referring to these items in these blind boxes, you can ask for example, this series, this collection, have how many different types?
So this is talking about how many of these are there in this series.
But, that's about style like fashion style?
It can be fashion style, it can even be clothes style.
So, for instance, the style, the cutting and designing of this clothes is quite nice to me.
Suits me. Something like this.
So because we talk about these blind boxes and the toys that I am thinking about now, many of these toys would be surrounding one certain theme.
And, for example, if you are collecting, let's say, a Harry Potter series of toys in these blind boxes, then usually not only will they have different characters in the Harry Potter series, they would even have different types.
For example, Dumbledore.
We all know Dumbledore as this old, wise, really silver -haired and silver -beared man, old wizard, yet he has his younger version in other movies.
So for these different items, they can be the young Dumbledore, the middle -age Dumbledore, and the relatively older Dumbledore.
So these different ones would be different type, different version, different design.
So that is kwon, different kwon.
Is he the same guy from the Lord of the Rings?
I mean some of him Well, one of him is because they change the character.
Thank you. We're off -topic now Back to take away Chinese.
Yes, so that's quite sure different types different styles.
Mm -hmm question about that word style Which this question is not related to blind boxes But if somebody asks you like, oh do you like this shirt?
Do you like this bag?
Like, do you like these shoes?
Can you say like? Doesn't have any style.
I don't like that style.
Oh no, I understand.
But you can say, I don't like this style.
But you can only use this word as a noun, not in the sense of the abstract fashion style style, but more like the designing.
I see. This is a more literal sense of the word, style.
Yes, the design of it.
Got it. Yes, so that is 問.
And I think for now we have all of the keywords of the idea of 今次.
So if you're talking about 次, you are almost always talking about a different, you are almost always talking about series 今次 and also in the same 今次 there would be different 今次.
And when you're unboxing, your chai or kai, the manhue, and you would hope you can chou dao, different type, especially the hidden ones, the rare edition yin xang quan.
If you get all of those, then you're gonna love unboxing your blind boxes.
If you get all the yin cheong, the hidden ones, yin chan, then you will really enjoy your dak kai.
Yes. Cai Mang He. Cai Mang He.
Yes. You love your Cai Mang He experience.
Right. You're listening to Take Away Chinese with myself, Neil Honilin, and Steve.
We would love to hear from you.
Send us your thoughts via email to learnchinese at cri .com .cn.
Coming up next, let's talk about some strange, yet now common, popular stuff in a blind box.
Don't go away, so you will take some Chinese away!
Welcome back to Takeaway Chinese!
I'm Hyo Hong -lin with Steve Hatherley in the studio.
In the beginning of the show, Steve asked me about the bread or food blind box.
I've bought one and now I can answer your question.
The reason we call it a… well, the one that I got was not necessarily a food blind box, It was more like a leftover blind box.
Explain please? Don't get me wrong.
I did not get someone's food that they bite for - they got one bite and they decided they don't like it.
It's more like the leftover food from a food store that they didn't sell.
So the idea was to save more food so that we do a better deed for the planet.
And a lot of bakery and also beverage store and some restaurant they after cooking for sometimes the entire day because it's actually quite natural if you bake, you bake for the entire day amount of food to sell to people.
And there would definitely be leftovers.
And they put the leftover bakeries into this one box.
you do not know what's in it, yet you trust the brand, you like the brand, you like the bakery, and you get the blind box.
And the catch here is that it's much cheaper, and you get the little element of surprise.
At the same time, you enjoy the idea that you're eating this really delicious bakery and saving the planet.
Yeah. And this is done in different cities around the country, right.
And it's such a wonderful idea because food waste is a big problem so many different countries around the world.
And this helps. This really, really helps.
So, food that typically would have been thrown away this is one of the ways that they can avoid doing that.
And literally we call it shíng psi máng hu.
Shíng chi máng hu. Yes shíng means leftover.
Shíng xá' leftover.
Cai is dish and mangue.
So, like the name suggests, it's not only to bakery, or beverage, it can be the kind of dish in restaurants as well.
So, shun cai mangue.
I haven't seen this at restaurants before.
So how does this work at restaurants?
Well, I think there is an app for different types of shun cai mangue, and a restaurant has to be one of the restaurants on this platform and you have to also order from this platform so you're getting the sheng ca instead of the well ordinary side.
So this is done through ordering with restaurants.
This is not just they put the food out at the front of the restaurant.
They sometimes do that too.
And especially for bakeries they would put the pastry bread cake into the blind box and you can just pick one that's fun I want to try that.
Yeah you can try and find a place with that service and that's the shen kai mang he and shen kai mang he is not the only blind box not the only mang he I've purchased online actually now on China's online shopping platforms we all know e -commerce is quite huge yes that's huge it's really developed in China and you can actually get a mang he for literally anything for example I have personally purchased a makeup May Jeong mange a makeup black box.
What did you get inside?
As far as I know People can be quite picky about their makeup because depending on your skin type Some types of makeup can work well with your skin and others might not so I'm curious What types of makeup's did you get?
That is why the shop owner is quite smart what they were offering was this eyeshadow blind box.
Mmm eyeshadow, blind box so it wouldn't matter so it wouldn't matter that much.
Yeah right, the idea was that you can try different colors that the ones that you didn't dare to try previously didn't think you're going to be you know good wearing it but with this eyeshadow blind box I get to try a blue green shiny kind of color, it was actually quite nice if you're in a nightclub or something.
Yeah, it depends if it depends.
But it's a fun experience and as always these kind of blind boxes no matter if it's the makeup blind box or for example a snack blind box, they would almost always promise that the value of the stuff in the blind box would be much higher than what you actually pay.
What you pay, yeah, right.
Which makes it very appealing for customers, and it also makes the customers willing to take that risk about, oh well, I don't know what colors are in that eye shadow box, but it's a good deal so I'll try it out.
Yes, and when it comes to Lin Ximang He Snack, blind box, I have also purchased a chocolate blind box, Chaokli Man He.
You can pick the brand you like and then get a blind box.
The catch here is that some of them would be close to expired date.
But it's not a big deal to me.
They will tell you what the expired date is and you get it in a lower price and also you get to try some types that you have never tried before.
That's fun, that's fun.
Okay, so those are, yeah, snacks, makeup, that makes sense to me.
Are there any other unique ideas for blind boxes that people sell?
One very unique idea would be Ji Peo Meng He.
Ji Peo Meng He. Ji Peo would be a plane ticket or flight ticket.
What? It's a discount flight ticket.
Really? So wait, you're buying a flight ticket and you don't know the destination?
You don't know the destination.
The idea is to give yourself a tweet of a surprise travel.
You got the date but you don't know the destination.
Do you have the return time?
No. It's just a one -way ticket?
It depends. Different services, different packages, but it's definitely fun.
Have you done that before?
I haven't done that, I'll try that in the future.
Oh, I think that would be a great idea.
So they do this for domestic flights and for international flights?
I think domestic flights mostly, because international flights for especially most Chinese people means that you have to get the passport, which is a bit difficult.
Sure, yeah. But domestic ones, definitely.
I think this is a great idea.
Can you let me know the next time you You see one of these blind box flight ticket things.
Of course, and for those of you who are interested in the life in China, I think we've covered a lot, but this tiny little element, this very special side of Chinese life is also here presented to you in today's takeaway Chinese.
Next time you think about coming to China, living here, staying for a while, having some fun, this might be another attraction as well.
Sounds fun. That sounds like a lot of fun.
Oh, I'm very curious about that flight ticket blind box, I really want to do that someday.
And next time when you actually do it, allow me to be there to see you Chaimong.
Okay, I will. And that brings us to the end of today's takeaway Chinese.
I'm Yuhan Lin with Steve Hatherly in the studio.
For more episodes of the show, you can visit our website at Radio .cgtn .com and go to the Column Podcast.
You can also listen to the show and read the script there.
Find us wherever you listen to your favorite podcasts, just search for Takeaway Chinese!
Don't forget to leave your questions, comments, and ratings!
Thank you for watching!
