Chinglish warms hearts on social media

Crude, succinct and very much to the point, Chinglish — a mishmash of Chinese and English long ridiculed for generating confounding and awkward translations — has recently created a buzz on social media for its unique consoling touch.

The online buzz stems from a post of a foreign blogger on the lifestyle-sharing platform Xiaohongshu on Aug 7. The blogger, who goes by the alias of Yourkris, shared pictures of her tearing up when seeing off her boyfriend at the airport.

The post's comment section was soon inundated with Chinese netizens leaving goodwill messages in Chinglish.

One comment attempted to persuade the blogger to move on and focus on the silver lining of potentially connecting with a better man in the future, reading "The old doesn't go, the new doesn't come."

Some netizens tried to talk her out of weeping, mimicking the tone of a nagging mother by saying "Cry, cry, cry! Just know cry! Luck is gone by u cry".

One of the most popular phases under the post played on a Chinese saying — a toad wishing to eat swan meat — that describes a crave for something that one is unworthy of. "You pretty, he ugly, u swan, he frog," read the comment.

Some concentrated their care for the young woman in two simple words, saying "Abandon! Abandon him."

As of Tuesday afternoon, the post on Xiaohongshu had garnered over 260,000 likes and 64,000 comments.

These verbatim translations — ignorant of grammar rules or different cultural connotations — have appeared to be infectious and spread to the X social media platform, formerly known as Twitter.

An X user shared screenshots of the original post and some of the most viral comments, saying, "Imagine going through a rough patch with your boyfriend and thousands of Chinese netizens comfort you," said the user. "This would actually fix me. I can't lie."

Another user applauded the choice of the word "abandon" because urging the teary woman to abandon her boyfriend sounds more impactful than suggesting her leaving him.

The metaphor of swan and frog has gone so viral that a variety of memes juxtaposing celebrities or cartoon characters unsuited for each other and assigning them as swans and frogs have been created and forwarded on X.

"(I) would prefer Chinese netizens comforting my every move instead of a soundtrack to my life," said an X account, as more users inquired about social media platforms used in China and expressed an eagerness to join them.