Each year, Chinese netizens vote for a word that captures the spirit of the preceding year. Usually, the shortlist presented to voters is anodyne, unlike the downbeat Japanese counterpart, sai, which means disaster in Chinese. This year, the word is fen, which means strive in Chinese.
However, there are a few clues to reflect the truer public sentiment. The most searched term through Baidu is vaccine incident, although it is conspicuously absent from this year’s official shortlist of phrases-of-the-year. Among those that make the cut are such yawn-inducing terms as “private enterprises”and “import expo”. The biggest official snub goes to Qiou, as showed in the picture, which is formed by three Chinese characters which mean dirty poor ugly.
The word Qiou describes the angst of many young Chinese who feel excluded from a society that obesesses over physical appearance and wealth.
One commentator quiped: “once Qiou, always Qiou.”
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