‘Keep calm under pressure’ — Phrase of the Week

Our phrase of the week is: Keep calm under pressure (松弛感 sōngchí gǎn).

Context

China is a stressful place to be in 2022: Cities can go into lockdown at a moment’s notice, job losses are mounting, and the economy is growing at a glacial pace.

So it’s not surprising that a new phrase has entered the Chinese internet dictionary to bring some positive energy to the people and encourage them to keep going.

In a social media post in August this year, a Weibo user commented on a family that had its travel plans canceled at the last minute because the son’s passport had expired: The mother decided to cancel her flight and take the son home, leaving the rest of the family to carry on with their holiday plans. But the luggage was already checked in under her name, and under airport bureaucracy (according to the Weibo post), it could not be reassigned to another family member.

So, off the family went, two people down and no luggage, on the holiday.

The Weibo user noted:

The family members were not upset at all. They simply made a phone call, and asked her to take the luggage home and courier it to their destination. They were all so relaxed throughout.

那家人完全完全没有生气，就是打了个电话叫人回来拿行李，然后让他们顺便寄个箱子，全程气氛都非常的松弛。

Nà jiārén wánquán wánquán méiyǒu shēngqì, jiùshì dǎle ge diànhuà jiào rén huílái ná xínglǐ, ránhòu ràng tāmen shùnbiàn jì ge xiāngzi, quánchéng qìfēn dōu fēicháng de sōngchí.

Since then, the phrase relaxed feeling (松弛感 sōngchí gǎn) has been discussed in the media, becoming a new phrase to describe people who are calm in the face of such unexpected change.

Translation

The word 松弛 sōngchí means “relaxed” in Chinese.

The addition of the third character, 感 gǎn, meaning “feeling,” onto adjectives like this is common. A direct translation of this new phrase is “relaxed feeling,” but it is still translated as “relaxed” or “calm” in practice.

Another example of a three-character “feeling” phrase is 高级感 gāo jí gǎn, meaning “posh” or “high-end.”

“High-end” and, more recently, “relaxed” are normally reserved to describe celebrities. But since August, the phrase has become an increasingly common way to compliment anyone who is relaxed when dealing with stress and last-minute changes.

Discussions have focused on the lack of people with 松弛感 sōngchí gǎn in China; it’s a quality that many people aspire to, but find hard to attain.

But, with life in China being so unpredictable under its continuing COVID-zero policy, who can blame them, as one writer points out:

At every moment, we are in the standby mode. As soon as something happens that’s not in the plan, it’s easy to totally lose it. We all envy and want to be like those who can remain relaxed.

时刻处在“备战”状态，事情一超出计划就情绪崩溃，一时间，人人羡慕“松弛感”，人人想要“松弛感”。

Shíkè chǔ zài “bèizhàn” zhuàngtài, shìqing yì chāochū jìhuà jiù qíngxù bēngkuì, yì shíjiān, rén rén xiànmù “sōngchí gǎn,” rén rén xiǎngyào “sōngchí gǎn.”

It seems the only thing that anyone can do, as residents of Beijing have shown, is keep calm and carry on.