Molly Huang in Asterisk:
It’s always been a personal fascination of mine what words a culture uses — and what words it lacks. Not only is it a good indication of how native speakers tend to think and feel; the creation of new words reflects new thoughts and new emotions that have become common enough to require a shorthand. Nowhere is this happening faster than on the internet. Every year, dozens of new slang terms spread like wildfire in people’s vocabularies. I thought I’d cover some of the terms I find most interesting that are circulating on the Chinese internet right now.
The Japanese term “shachiku” (社畜) literally means “company livestock.” It gained popularity in China almost as soon as it was invented. But lately I’ve seen many around Weibo joking that not even livestock are worked like Chinese university graduates — cattle will literally die if you make them work 996 hours (that is, 9 a.m. to 9 p.m., six days a week). For a time, people likened themselves to machines instead. That was until someone found a better term in a 1984 article from the People’s Daily, the CCP’s official newspaper: “human ore.” It refers to the way workers feel they are a resource to be exploited, consumed, and discarded to fuel the engine of progress.
More here.
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