Tuesday, August 14, 2007

Er Bai Wu - I'm the Fool

Er bai wu : Literally means "250". Figuratively, it refers to the subject as being silly. Among close friends, it's a cute term but when applied to someone else, it's quite a malicious put-down (maybe it translates better as feeble-minded?). As a result, almost no local chinese will ever negotiate a price of 250 yuan for anything they buy. How did I find out? I bargained an item to 250 yuan, listened to the snickering and thought I was overpaying. Later, I come to find out that I had bargained to a fool's price (quite literally).

Usage: Ni er bai wu. (You're silly.)

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2 Comments:

Blogger Judy said...

This is a clever post. Have you submitted anything to That's Beijing or City Weekend before? You should!

31 August, 2007 04:48  
Blogger agoel said...

What? And sully my carefully cultivated starving artist persona by actually earning money for doing this? No way! Now, how do I go about activating AdSense for my blog?

03 September, 2007 02:48  

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