If a young Chinese says "You're an idiot" or "You're abnormal", don't worry -- chances are you're not the first person to be told that.
Today, when you listen to conversations among young people, you would always hear such "very cool" expressions.
The cultural department of Guangdong Province, one of China's most developed areas which neighbors Hong Kong, conducted a survey of 1,000 college students and found the top 10 most commonly-used terms among young people were: "9.11", "WTO", "Very cool", "Go to the (World Cup) finals", "Counter-terrorism", "Wow!", "QQ" (an on-line chatting program), "You're an idiot", "You're abnormal", and "Are you for real?"
The survey showed that China's youth are much more aware of and influenced by the outside world than they were 10 years ago when the language focused more on modernization and economic development.
Back then, the 10 most commonly-used terms were: "Going into the sea" (work for the private business), "Bid for Olympic Games", "Fa" (become rich), "Dageda" (mobile phone), "Part-time jobs", "Computers", "No problem", "Why?", "Fans" (not the electric kind), and "Learn from Lei Feng" (1940-1962, an honorable Chinese soldier).
Most fashionable terms popular among young people have positive meanings and are closely related to domestic and world situations, which reflected young people's patriotism and open-mindedness, said Wang Heyu, a professor at Zhongshan University, who studies colloquial Chinese.
But some of them are negative and decadent, and could be regarded as "language rubbish" and ought to be disposed of, said Guo Lei, a professor at Guangdong Economic Management College.
Most of the terms are used in a spirit of fun in right occasions, but the negative terms and those from foreign languages might cause confusion to the use and development of the Chinese language, warned experts.
(Xinhua News Agency June 24, 2003)
