Category: Chinese customs

The Chinese government stipulates a five-day workweek with no more than 8 hours a day and no more than 44 hours a week in the Labor Law of People's Republic of China.

The winter solstice is an important solar term in the lunar calendar in China, which is also a traditional festival. Today, residents in many places maintain their customs of celebrating the festival of winter solstice. As far as in the Spring and Autumn Period, Chinese people adopted the methods of Rigui to measure the shadow of the sun for determining the twenty-four solar terms. Among them, the winter solstice is the first to be fixed, roughly around 22-23 December in the lunar calendar.

After a month of online voting, expert judging and online squabbling, China’s “Character of the Year” was finally selected, and, ironically enough, it was a character with no concrete meaning at all: 被(bèi). On its own, it’s a boring, functional word—a particle for passive voice sentences; it can also mean “blanket.” Yet events this year made it surprisingly popular.
Voters and judges sifted through 1519 nominees to select China’s “Word of the Year,” “民生” (mín shēng, “people’s livelihood”).
The prize for “International Character of 2009” was awarded to “浮” (fú, to float); not surprisingly, “金融危机” (jīn róng wēi jī, or “financial crisis”) walked away with the honor of “International Word of 2009.” For the past four years, the annual “Word of the Year” competition has been held by The Commercial Press, along with the education arm of sina.com and the Online Sub-center of the State Language Commission. The public are urged to submit words and characters that they feel best represent the past year. This year, from Jan. 4 to Feb. 6, 942 characters and 359 words were nominated to represent China, and 84 characters and 149 words were nominated to represent the globe.
So why did 被（bèi ）get the top honors? On its own, this little guy is used to indicate the passive voice, like the “be” in “be attacked,” or the “-ed” in “scolded”. Bei can be used to create sentences like “wo bei da le” (“我被打了wǒ bèi dǎ le ,” or “I was beaten up”). From these two examples you can see—it didn’t always have good connotations. Also, traditionally it was considered taboo to use 被when writing.
But in 2009, bei got a lot of use. It was a year in which China felt like it had been repeatedly affected by outside forces and made a passive actor. Thus, the term “被时代” (bèi shí dài), or “the era of being something-ed”) was born. In 2009, a lot of people had been “bei-ed,” and there was lots of “bei-ing” going around.
For example, this year China was grouped with the USA as one half of the G2. The prevailing Chinese sentiment was that this was unfair—China is still developing, they argued, and isn’t really on par with the USA. China felt that it had no say in whether it was to be a part of the G2 or not. In other words, they felt that they have “被G2,” or, literally, “been G2-ed.”
“民生” (mín shēng, “People’s livelihood”,) is actually a two-time winner, having also taken “Word of the Year” in 2007, and then losing out to “和” (hé, harmony) in 2008. Experts explained that “民生” has a warm ring to it, and evokes strong emotions. This last year, the country put a lot of time and energy into building rural infrastructure, increasing employment, developing a rural and urban welfare system, giving support to seniors, continuing post-disaster reconstruction and protecting the environment. So it’s not hard to see why a concept like “people’s livelihood” is on would be a favorite word.
The International Character winner “浮” (fú, “to float”) was chosen because it reflects China’s online reaction to global affairs this year. World issues were constantly changing and unavoidable—it felt like they were floating in the air. So the word, 浮, stuck. The International “Word of the Year” was “金融危机” jīn róng wēi jī, “financial crisis”)—it should be clear why.
Other prominent new words included popular Internet slang. There was 牛(niú), literally meaning “cow,” but popularly used as “awesome.” “哥” (gē) once meant “big brother”, but now is frequently heard in place of “me” or “I.” 蜗居(wō jū) is a popular new word which means  “humble abode.” It's from a hit TV show of the same name, about young people struggling to deal with the price of accommodation in China’s cities, became a popular term.
And finally, if you’ve read our “Jia Junpeng” article, you won’t be surprised about the final two words that were highlights: “杯具” (bēi jù, cups—a homophone for “tragedy”) and “寂寞” (jì mò, loneliness).

Key words: 蜗居（wō jū）：humble abode
                 杯具（bēi jù）：a homophone for 
                 民生（mín shēng）：people's livelihood
                 金融危机（jīn róng wēi jī）：fiancial crisis

Unlike in most western countries, the tap water in China is undrinkable before it is boiled. Drinking Water in Hotels
Hotel rooms often feature a water dispenser which delivers both cool and hot potable water. However, some hotels have no water dispenser but are instead equipped with a water heater or thermos. You can use the heater to boil water or use the water directly from the thermos. If the water in the thermos has run out, you can ask a waiter to refill it. In some cases, four- or five-star hotels may supply high-quality mineral water for free or for a minimal charge. The tap water in the hotels can be used to brush teeth.

立秋，是二十四节气中的第13个节气，每年8月7日至9日立秋。“秋”就是指暑去凉来，意味着秋天的开始。立秋后虽然一时暑气难消，有“秋老虎”的余威，但总的趋势是天气逐渐凉爽。立秋这天除了贴秋膘、啃秋、戴楸叶、喝红豆汤，中国各地还各有不同的习俗。

Enamel porcelain(瓷器cíqì) used imported enamel(enamel is a substance like glass which can be heated and put onto metal, glass, or pottery in order to decorate or protect it) paint, and was an extremely precious category of royal porcelain created by an exclusive royal production unit in the Qing court. There were very few items produced and they were collected exclusively in the royal palace. This double-vase was a popular shape in the Qianlong period.