‘Unbearably tacky’ — Phrase of the Week

Our Phrase of the Week is: Unbearably tacky (俗不可耐 sú bùkě nài).

The context

An online debate about bad music is unfolding in China.

Singer-songwriter Lǐ Rónghào 李荣浩 released a track last November called “Dark Plum Sauce” (乌梅子酱 wūméizǐ jiàng), a love song to his wife, Taiwanese singer Rainie Yang Cheng Lin (杨丞琳 Yáng Chénglín).

The song wasn’t a hit to begin with, and there were some comments that it was a rip-off of a 2005 Jay Chou (周杰倫 Zhōu Jiélún) track. But by Valentine’s Day this year, Li’s ballad had gained some traction online, with influential Douyin video bloggers doing cover versions of it.

The popularity was helped by China’s opening up, with young people feeling COVID free and fantastic, looking forward to getting out and dating again. By late February, the song had topped the music downloads charts in China to become a song that everyone was singing, or a “saliva song” (口水歌 kǒushuǐ gē) in Chinese.

But this week, the tune topped online rankings for different reasons: a pointed comment from outspoken music critic Dīng Tàishēng 丁太升. Ding didn’t get what all the fuss was about:

This song brings with it a strong Chinese countryside taste, mixed with the popular elements of trendy short videos. But it’s just unbearably tacky. Even using the word tacky to describe this song is unbearably tacky.

一股浓郁的中国乡土风，掺杂着当下短视频的爆火元素就扑面而来。简直俗不可耐啊。甚至用俗不可耐这个词来形容这首歌，也变得俗不可耐起来了。

Yì gǔ nóngyù de zhōngguó xiāngtǔ fēng, chānzázhe dāngxià duǎn shìpín de bào huǒ yuánsù jiù pūmiàn érlái. Jiǎnzhí sú bùkě nài a. Shènzhì yòng sú bùkě nài zhège cí lái xíngróng zhè shǒu gē, yě biàn de sú bùkě nài qǐláile.

And with that, we have our Phrase of the Week.

What it means

Unbearably tacky is a four-character Chinese idiom that literally translates as “tacky” (俗 sú) and “unbearable” (不可耐 bùkě nài). In other words, something is so tasteless that it’s intolerable.

The phrase originates from Strange Tales From a Chinese Studio (聊斋志异 liáozhāi zhìyì), by the Qing-dynasty novelist Pú Sōnglíng 蒲松龄.

Published in 1766, Strange Tales is a collection of over 500 short stories that blend life at the time of the Qing with the supernatural. It is one of China’s best-known works of fiction.

The short story “Yishui Scholar” (沂水秀才 yíshuǐ xiùcái) is the short story where tacky first appears:

A beauty put a piece of silver, which weighed about three or four liang, on the table. A scholar took it and put it in his inner sleeve. The other beauty took the scarf (from the table). The two beauties linked their hands and went out laughing. Before leaving, one of them said: “You’re so cheap!”

一美人置白金一铤，可三四两许，秀才掇内袖中。美人取巾握手笑出曰：“俗不可耐！”

Yì měirén zhì báijīn yí dìng, kě sānsì liǎng xǔ, xiùcái duō nèi xiù zhōng. Měirén qǔ jīn wòshǒu xiào chū yuē: “Sú bùkě nài!”

For Ding Taisheng, Li Ronghao’s latest viral hit has lowered his standards and compromised on quality by appealing to Douyin algorithms:

It’s trying to cater to young people in small towns, “art aficionados” who only graduated from middle school, and migrant workers.

这是一首为了投机迎合小镇青年，和初中毕业的文艺骨干和打工者的作品。

Zhè shì yì shǒu wèile tóujī yínghé xiǎozhèn qīngnián, hé chūzhōng bìyè de wényì gǔgàn hé dǎgōng zhě de zuòpǐn.