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There's an odd expression that has become virally popular in the PRC in recent weeks, viz., shuǎi guō 甩锅 (lit., "throw / toss the pot / pan", i.e., "shift the blame; pass the buck").

Expressions related to guō 锅 ("pot / pan") are not new.  For example, bèi guō 背锅 ("bear the blame"), and guō cóng tiān jiàng 锅从天降 ("accusation / blame coming from nowhere", lit., "pot falling from the sky").  Together with shuǎi guō 甩锅 (lit., "throw / toss the pot / pan") itself, they were popular long before their current application in connection with accusations of responsibility and culpability for the COVID-19 pandemic.

So far as I know, the expression shuǎi guō 甩锅 (lit., "throw / toss the pot / pan") is not a recent coinage. It was originally an expression used by players of League of Legends (a multiplayer online battle arena video game released in 2009), and has been popular for many years.

The earliest application that has come to my attention is that it goes back to old days when soldiers on the march had to carry all their gear.  Since the cooking pan was the heaviest item that no one wanted to have to carry, they would toss it off on someone else if they could.

Using guō 锅 ("pot; pan") to mean "blame" apparently derives from the idiomatic expression "bēi hēiguō 背黑锅" ("bear a black pot / pan"). According to Xiàndài Hànyǔ dà cídiǎn 现代汉语大词典 (Unabridged Dictionary of Modern Sinitic) and Hàn-Yīng dà cídiǎn 汉英大词典 (Unabridged Sinitic-English Dictionary), "bēi hēiguō 背黑锅" ("bear a black pot / pan")" is used metaphorically to mean "take the blame for others"; "be made a scapegoat"; "be unjustly blamed". It's suggested that guō 锅 ("pot; pan") has been used to refer to "blame; responsibility" because its pronunciation in Cantonese, wo1, is similar to that of wo6 祸" ("misfortune; disaster; calamity").

Shuǎi guō 甩锅 (lit., "throw / toss the pot / pan", i.e., "shift the blame; pass the buck") has become a virally popular expression ever since the beginning of the pandemic in Wuhan. It was first applied to the officials of the local government and experts of health commissions who tried to pass the blame to other departments.

Subsequently, as is well known, its usage was extended to describe similar acts between nations. Thanks to the aggressive Chinese "wolf warrior diplomats" and CCTV, who have been endeavoring to adopt popular phrases of the grassroots since recent years, shuǎi guō 甩锅 (lit., "throw / toss the pot / pan", i.e., "shift the blame; pass the buck") has successfully established itself in the vocabulary of official speeches by replacing more formal expressions like tuīxiè zérèn 推卸责任 ("shirk responsility"). Contrary to shuǎi guō 甩锅 (lit., "throw / toss the pot / pan", i.e., "shift the blame; pass the buck") is bèi guō / bēi hēiguō 背锅/背黑锅 ("take / bear / shoulder blame for the faults of others"), which has a longer history than shuǎi guō 甩锅 (lit., "throw / toss the pot / pan", i.e., "shift the blame; pass the buck"). Here is a link for bēi hēiguō 背黑锅 (in Chinese).

Still more recently, the CCP — realizing how popular the expression had become with regard to netizen condemnation of the misdeeds of the various government agencies, especially in Wuhan where the pandemic began in late 2019 before it was publicly recognized as an epidemic disease in January — decided to adopt it for their own purposes to pass the buck to the United States and other nations.

Here are some other examples of the CCP coopting popular culture:

• "East Asian multilingual pop culture" (10/31/17)
• "CCP approved image macros" (12/17/17)
• "Chinese Communist Party biscriptalism" (2/11/18)

Once the CCP government and its supporters got into the spirit of blaming the United States and other Western countries for the spread of the novel coronavirus, variations of the theme of "passing the pot / pan" proliferated, e.g., "jiē guō 接锅" ("receive / take the blame"), "rén zài jiāzhōng zuò, guō cóng tiān shàng lái人在家中坐，锅从天上来" (lit., "someone is sitting at home when a pot comes down from heaven above", i.e., "somebody is blamed for no reason"), etc.

Bill Bikales, who is a seasoned China specialist and is currently in Beijing, confirms that this expression, shuǎi guō 甩锅 (lit., "throw / toss the pot / pan", i.e., "shift the blame; pass the buck"), is now ubiquitous in Chinese official / media discussions of America's criticisms of China's handling of COVID-19.

He further relates:

I had lunch today with an embassy officer from SE Asia, and he said that they are all also very curious about this phrase, which none of them recall seeing before, and which is now being used so frequently, including by Zhao Lijian 赵立坚, Foreign Ministry spokesperson, in his press meeting yesterday.  It seems to be used now as a transitive verb, e.g., "Měiguó zài shuǎi guō Zhōngguó 美国在甩锅中国“ ("America is shifting the blame to China"), etc.

He said that they are also hunting to learn how this phrase came from out of nowhere to be so widely used by officials here now.  Are they all secretly gamers?

There are numerous WeChat stickers regarding "锅" ("pot; pan" > "blame").

"甩锅" ("throw the pot/pass the buck")

"你背" ("let you carry the pot", i.e., "lay the blame on you")

"你的锅" ("it's your pot"/ "it's for you to get the blame")

And here's Jiabao Li's lively "Toss Pan Dance shuǎiguō wǔ 甩锅舞", together with a video of President Trump doing his own anime version of the Toss Pan Dance and a compilation of people's Toss Pan Dance from the internet.

Selected readings

• "Don't Kettle" (11/4/10)
• "The further elaboration of a flagrant mistranslation" (8/31/13)
• "Braised enterovirus, anyone?" (7/16/08)
• "A Persian word in a Sinitic topolect" (3/10/20)
• "Me Old China" (1/18/13) — and don't miss the comments
• "Miscellaneous bacteria" (1/11/19)
• "What's the History of the Wok? A Continuing Investigation", by Rachel Laudan (1/20/13)
• "Hong Kong’s fascination with ghosts and woks shows Cantonese can be a lot more subtle than we think", by Luisa Tam, SCMP (2/29/20)
  "The words can be used in a dazzling array of combinations that allow humour to take the sting out of rudeness, and ‘gwei’, or ghost, is not always negative. It would not be an exaggeration to say that a wok is as essential a cookware in Chinese culture as it is in daily local conversations."

[Thanks to June Teufel Dreyer, Ben Zimmer, Tong Wang, Yijie Zhang, Yixue Yang, Chenfeng Wang]

May 14, 2020 @ 7:59 pm · Filed by Victor Mair under Idioms, Language and politics, Memes, Metaphors

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