Slang - 吃瓜 Gossip

Welcome to Speak Chinese Now. 我是李老师. Today I'd like to share with you another online slang. It's called 吃瓜. 吃, as many of you guys know, 吃 is to eat. 瓜, any kind of a 瓜, every time you see a 瓜, normally referring to melon, any kind of melon. It can be a watermelon, which is a 西瓜. It can be, let's say, 南瓜, which is pumpkins. So when you see a 瓜 look like this, most of the time it's referring to melon, right? So I want to take a look at all these pictures here. What does it mean by just eating melon? Yeah, eat melon, eat watermelon, right? There you go. Say, this one, I'm going to start from here. In Chinese, this is the 吃瓜看戏. He's eating watermelon. He's eating watermelon and 看 is to watch, to read. But this one in this situation, 戏, is kind of a drama. So you eat watermelon, you're sitting around, you watch, you know, time goes by, and you watch things online, or you watch television, you're gossip. That's the situation. What does it mean? I want to also take a look, want you to say, take a look at this picture. Three people, three guys sitting around doing nothing. The movement, I think they're eating, they're eating sunflower seeds. Sunflower seeds is kind of like a snack in China. Most of Chinese, they can sit there and crack a whole bag full of it. They come with all different kinds of flavors. So you're sitting there, basically, you're doing nothing. You crack and eat the sunflower seeds and gossip, right? You're basically saying things you saw online, or you watched, or your family. It is just basically, it's kind of a casual leisure time. So it describes that it is kind of a non-productive, sitting there and chitchat, eating watermelon seeds. Most of the time, it's not watermelon. Here's the watermelon seeds. Apparently, this has a tradition. Watermelon is called a xi gua. Xi is West. So I guess the xi gua is not coming from kind of a native to China. Maybe it's coming from the West. Xi gua, watermelon. But in English, we call it watermelon. But in Chinese, it's called western melon. Then take a look at the sunflower seeds. It's a big business. People would sit there and crack and talk sometimes with a pot of tea for hours. Take a look at the teeth right here. If you met any Chinese with the front tooth look like this, most likely, it's from cracking the sunflower seeds. There's a sunflower seed damage to their tooth. I've seen many. I don't know. Maybe I had one when I first came to the States. Because you sit there and cracking in the same spot for years and years and years. You just sit there, and there's not a whole lot of to chew or to eat. It's more of kind of a leisure time, almost like America, maybe peanuts. It is a sort of a snack. People do like to sit there and gossip and crack sunflower seeds. Although this is a xi gua, it looks like eating melon. I think it has to do with guazi, meaning the seeds, the sunflower seeds. That's part of a kind of a Chinese culture from thousands of years ago. It's incredible. Even in the Chinese literature, one of the very famous literature, Hong Lou Meng, The Red Chamber, or some rather, The Dream of Red Chamber. I forgot the name of it. It's called Hong Lou Meng. It has Lin Dai Yu, the main character, actually cracking seeds. I don't know, at that time, thousands of years ago, do they have sunflower seeds or do they crack watermelon seeds? Anyway, if you eat too much, it looks like this, your teeth, your tooth. It's true. Pay attention to mainland Chinese. I don't know if any other culture does that, but this is huge. I think Westerners going to China, they notice that Chinese like to crack sunflower seeds. It's a big business. When you go to Chinatown or Chinese grocery store, you can actually buy those seeds in a package. It has all kinds of flavors. Some are creamy, some are spicy, some are garlicky. You name it. I haven't had any after I left China, but back in China, it's a big business. We're going to move over to this little guy. He has a watermelon skin, part of a watermelon on his head, and he's still eating watermelon. The handwriting here, the character says, referring to the mass, the people. So literally means bystander. People, actually, they're not really part of it, the drama or the situation, the world, let's say, issues. They watch it online and, let's say, watch the war in Iran or in Ukraine or anything happening. So they're bystanders. They're not part of it. So it's called a 吃瓜群众, right? Bystanders do what? They sit around, they're basically to chat. So that is how you say it, watch drama unfold. It doesn't mean it is actually a play, a drama on TV. It can be international situation, can be your family situation, can be a celebrity story, can be anything on television or in the world news or in the local news. You can just say, I'm a bystander, right? Meaning it's not my business. I'm just gossiping. So this is how you say it. Let's say it one more time. 吃瓜子 is seeds. This can be 吃西瓜子, and don't get your teeth to look like that. It's not appealing. Then this little guy, it says 吃瓜看戏. I eat a watermelon. He's watched the time go by. You chitchat. The three guys are sitting there. They're not doing any work. The look in their mouth with their finger in their mouth looks just like they're eating seeds. And those are roasted. And most of the time, they're not raw. It's roasted. They're big business. If you want to get into a seeds business, you want to make sure to sell it to China because there's a lot of market, big market. Everybody does it from young to old. They're just sitting around drinking powdered tea and chitchat. And you got to have something to chew on. That is it, 吃瓜. So this little guy is a 吃瓜群众, bystanders. When you want to just say, it's not my business. I'm just kind of just gossiping. You can say 我是吃瓜群众. You know, one of the mass, the people. That is not really my business. I'm just watching and gossiping. That's how you say it. All right. One more time. 吃瓜. Now you learn how to say 吃瓜群众. Understand the actual meaning of it. I have other videos on the short online slang. So check them out. I have other learning videos. Please subscribe and click like and help me to grow the channel. I really appreciate your help. That's all I have for today.