Chinese youths embrace the void
The latest craze in Chinese slang is a combination of three characters that can't be produced on a keyboard. But its image, which appeared early this month on Weibo, the Chinese equivalent of Twitter, has been viewed tens of millions of times.
Pronounced "qiou," its popularity has nothing to do with China's reputation for ambition and optimism or the Communist Party's attempts to project an image of strength and power. Quite the opposite.
The three components mean poor, ugly and dirt, though the dirt character is also used colloquially as outdated, unfashionable or tacky.
Put them together and - according to one highly shared post - you get an adjective with three possible definitions: 1. so poor you're eating
