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Face meaning "prestige" is technically a loan synonym, owing to semantic overlap between the native English meaning "outward semblance; effrontery" and the borrowed Chinese meaning "prestige; dignity". When face acquired its Chinese sense of "prestige; honor", it filled a lexical gap in the English lexicon. Chan and Kwok write,
Because shame or "face" is important in Chinese culture, insulting someone as "shameless" is much stronger than in English: bú yàoliǎn (Chinese: 不要臉) = shameless, lit. "doesn't want face," i.e., "discards his face, does not seek to maintain a good status in society".
However, an equals sign, a number 8, a capital letter B or a capital letter X are also used to indicate normal eyes, widened eyes, those with glasses or those with crinkled eyes, respectively. Symbols for the mouth vary, e.g. ")" for a smiley face or "(" for a sad face. One can also add a "}" after the mouth character to indicate a beard.
Morphemes are the minimal units of meaning in a language. [4] Chinese characters are morpheme characters, and the meanings of Chinese characters come from the morphemes they record. [5] Most Chinese characters only represent one morpheme, and the meaning of the character is the meaning of the morpheme recorded by the character. For example:
Mien shiang (Chinese: 面 相; pinyin: miànxiàng meaning face (mien) reading (shiang)) is a physiognomic and fortune-telling practice in Chinese culture and traditional Chinese medicine which purports to determine aspects of person's character, personality, and (future) health by analyzing their face according to the five phases ("wu xing").
Jiong (Chinese: 囧; pinyin: jiǒng; Jyutping: gwing2) is a once obscure Chinese character meaning a "patterned window". [1] Since 2008, it has become an internet phenomenon and widely used to express embarrassment and gloom because of the character's resemblance to a sad facial expression. [2]
Chinese Internet slang (Chinese: 中国网络用语; pinyin: zhōngguó wǎngluò yòngyǔ) refers to various kinds of Internet slang used by people on the Chinese Internet. It is often coined in response to events, the influence of the mass media and foreign culture, and the desires of users to simplify and update the Chinese language.
Chink is an English-language ethnic slur usually referring to a person of Chinese descent, [1] but also used to insult people with East Asian features. The use of the term describing eyes with epicanthic folds is considered highly offensive and is regarded as racist by many.