I haven’t been on Chinese social media for a while, but just a couple days ago, my wife told me that China has huge crash in the stock market, and apparently people are upset: https://markets.ft.com/data/world/countries/china

People apparently are commenting about the crash under a post about giraffe by the American Embassy: https://web.archive.org/web/20240203222849/https://m.weibo.cn/detail/4997088081609837 . Not a sentence I ever think I will say, but it is what it is.

Google translate don’t work on this page for whatever reason, so you can pick some comments randomly and put it into translate to see for yourself.

So it is possible that the heavy report on the problem of U.S. is a diversion tactic to the internal problem in China: “You lost all your money, at least we are not in a civil war. LOL”

Although personally, I don’t have much empathy towards people lost money in the stock market. They are by definition “capitalist”, and they took a gamble and lost; especially in Chinese stock market, which is known to be unstable.

probably something like “America is mean too”

Wikipedia has a good article on this period: https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/White_Terror_(Taiwan)

I can, but unfortunately, I dont have much will to organize it…

I would love to have one, but I have yet to find an alternative.

Not exactly, 摆烂 is more mischievous noncompliance (like we typically think of a lazy cat), than confrontational sabotage.

But “throw it all away” certainly conveys the message well enough. It is quite common to have word in one language that dont have a exact match in another language. Even in European languages, let along between Chinese and English, which are widely different.

Thank you for your kind message. China is my cultural root, and both its culture and language are of great importance to me.

I was very active on r/translator before I left reddit. It is my great joy to see that I still have opportunity here to convey Chinese cultures to kind strangers on lemmy.

That is what I mean when I say there is no exact translation.

摆烂 doesn’t mean see the system collapse, merely displaying the lack of interest to participate. So the speaker is displaying the 烂 (bad attitude, rot), not the system. I believe 摆烂 is more akin to “civil disobedience” or “quit quitting”, than “let it rot” (if anything, it is closer to the literal meaning of “let me rot”).

I want to make it more clear in my original comment, but I was afraid it would be too verbose and distract the reader.

I don’t think anyone think of China as a communist/socialist country for a very long time. Maybe except older generations and tankies.

Ironically, I have met more tankies in six month on lemmy than my 18 years growing up in China. It is truly a wild culture shock that I didn’t expect. LOL.

China is a authoritarian country, but it doesn’t have the resource and political will to capture and kill every person that doesn’t align with CCP.

Things can get pretty ugly (like death, torture, or removal of livelihood) for strong anti-governmental message, like bridgeman; significant public figure expressing dissent (even as a joke), like Bi Fujian, the host of the most popular variety show; or significant public event like wuyi (乌衣), Quanmei, and other activist in the chained woman incident.

But Chinese government is not going to kill someone for saying “I am so fucking overworked”. Arrest for telling the story to foreign media (which obviously is neither humane nor legal, I am not trying to defend CCP), maybe, but not worth any more serious punishment.

It is as much a trend as “quit quitting” is a trend. To the point Chinese official media has written several articles urging people to not 摆烂 (aka “let it rot”)

• http://opinion.people.com.cn/n1/2022/1014/c447715-32545220.html
• http://opinion.people.com.cn/n1/2022/1116/c447715-32567624.html
• http://dangjian.people.com.cn/n1/2023/0802/c117092-40048861.html
• https://dxs.moe.gov.cn/zx/a/xyh_xyh_xhpgzs/221221/1824119.shtml

This is another case of a foreign word don’t have a good translation in English (and vise versa). Both 摆烂 and 让它腐烂 don’t have the same tone as “let it rot”.

To me, “let it rot” means watching something collapse with a sense of enjoyment. I cannot recall a Chinese word with this exact sentiment of the top of my head. But I can try to explain both Chinese words.

“让它腐烂” is the literal translation of “let it rot”, word for word. It don’t have the cultural and sentimental meaning behind it, merely stating the fact. More like “let the leave rot in the compost pile”.

“摆烂” is probably what the article is referring to. Its meaning is similar to civil disobedience, and 躺平 (“lay flat”, another word that was popular couple years ago).

“摆” means put, “烂” means something poorly made, broken, etc. “摆烂”, together as a word, means “displaying a broken (bad) attitude, no matter the outside influence”. However, “烂” also means rot, which is probably where the translation “let it rot” came from.

The original usage is much more playful, like your cat would lay on the floor no matter what toy or treat you give it, then it is 摆烂. But with the recent increase in pressure for many young people in China. 摆烂 and 躺平 (lay flat) become more of a act of civil disobedience and refusal to participate in the broken system/economy.

So 摆烂 is not a exact translation for “let it rot”, but they do share the meaning of “no action” and the sentiment of joy. And “let it rot” sounds much cooler and concise than my explanation.