All places in China have topolect terms, some more than others, and some are more influential outside of their own region than others. One regional variety whose speakers create numerous memorable expressions they are proud of is Dōngběihuà 東北話 ("Northeastern topolect"). I was inspired to make this post after reading a collection of twenty Northeasternisms.
I showed the collection to Diana Shuheng Zhang, who is an authentic Northeasterner. Diana not only translated and explained the entire collection, she added twenty more, for a total of forty, commenting, "Can't stop laughing. Hope everybody enjoys our native expressions. :)"
Please note that I (VHM) have added all the pinyin romanizations and a few literal translations). Because some of the characters are unusual and I'm not a Northeastern speaker, I cannot guarantee the accuracy, especially down to the tones (and their sandhi), of all the transcriptions I have supplied. Pay attention to Diana's valuable phonological notes.
2. gǔn dúzǐ 滚犊子 — Beat it! F**k off! You could imagine the literal image: "Get rolling, you son of a cow!"
3. tūlu pí 秃噜皮 — (lit. "skin comes loose") = scraped one's skin raw. We could also use this expression for something that loses its surface gloss or protective layer. Yes, your handbag, desk, or even car could all 秃噜皮 with wear and tear.
4. kějìnr zào 可劲儿造 — Eat to your best ability — Go all out! Let loose today (when about food)! Yes, instead of "itadakimasu (いただきます)", we NE Chinese tell the guests at the table (and too, to ourselves) to "go all out".
5. èr yǐzi 二椅子 — (lit. "two-tailed") = non-female, non-male = a non-binary person. VHM: The orthography of this term is very vexed. Diana has written it with characters that mean "two chairs", but that's certainly not what the Northeast expression means. Nonetheless, her "literal" translation of èr yǐzi 二椅子 as "two-tailed" is correct. The original collection of Northeasternisms that we are working from has the perfectly homophonous èr yǐzi 二乙子, which "literally" means "diethyl ether"! Fortunately, I had written about this problem in the "Afterword: A tale of two tails" to this post: "
The politico-cultural implications of Taiwanese romanization" (3/12/25).
Yesterday as I was walking on the street with one of my students [Diana], she used the expression "èryǐzi". I told her I didn't understand that term. She said it means "a person with two tails". Hmmm. I said, "Oh, you mean 'yīgè rén yǒu liǎng ge wěibā 一个人有两个尾巴' ('a person with two tails')?" "Yes", she replied, "but we don't pronounce '尾巴' as 'wěibā', we pronounce it as 'yǐba'." (Well, I [VHM] have been pronouncing "尾巴" as "wěibā" for more than half a century, but I didn't make a point of it with her.) She continued, "That's why we pronounce this term as 'èryǐzi'." After a while, together we figured out that she was trying to say a Chinese equivalent of "hermaphrodite", but it's derogatory (also means "sissy") and regional (north central and slightly to the west). I'm simplifying things quite a bit, because it's late and I have to catch a flight tomorrow morning. Of course, Chinese also has more neutral, anatomical ways to say "hermaphrodite; intersex person". The reason I bring up this "Tale of two tails" here is because it illustrates how the same character can confuse people more than help them when they're talking about something and bring up the characters. And all of this was done using different topolects of "Mandarin".
BTW, this odd regionalism, "a person with two tails" is also a part of the vocabulary of Dungan speakers, who use cyrillic to write their language, not sinographs, hence эрйизы. For Dungan, see this post, "'Thanks' in Hakka and other Sinitic topolects" (2/15/25), and many other Language Log posts, some of them listed in the "Selected readings" below.
This sort of thing happens countless times when you read, write, and speak Chinese languages and topolects. I sort of get used to it.
UPDATE: The slang lexical item nowadays pronounced "èryǐzi" would have been pronounced "èrwěizi" half a century ago when I learned the sinograph, but — living in Taiwan — I wasn't exposed to that northern topolecticism back then. (
Wiktionary; also
here)
6. kēngchi biě dù 吭哧瘪肚 — to huff and puff (It's not stuttering; it's when someone breathes heavily, or laboring hard while speaking — almost straining himself just to utter a few sentences in a conversation.) var. 吭哧憋肚
7. pò mǎ Zhāng Fēi 破马张飞 — (lit., "broken-horse Zhang Fei", alluding to that famously brash general from the folklore surrounding the Three Kingdoms.) = someone who is rough, crude, and clumsy. I think the best English proverbial correspondence would be: "bull in a china shop".
8. wǔ mí sān dào 五迷三道 — (lit. "five confused; three lost") = bewildered, absent-minded; totally out of something, all mixed up.
9. qī lī kā chā 七哩喀喳 — (lit. an onomatopoeia of crisp sounds) = describes someone doing things quickly, efficiently, and decisively.
10. jījiǎo gālá 犄角旮旯 — hidden or back corners, unseen spots, or, if idiomatic — nooks and crannies.
11. jí tóu bái liǎn 急头白脸 — (lit. "blushed head, white face") = in a mad rush, either arguing fiercely (verbally) or acting in a flurry.
12. shuǐ dāng niào kù 水裆尿裤 — (lit. "wet crotch, peed pants") = doing things sloppily, inefficiently, messily. I think a nice English equivalent would be "half-assed" — the NE Chinese expression also refers to a certain rear area to make the same point! ;)
13. wǔ mǎ chángqiāng 舞马长枪 — (lit. "cueing a horse and waving a spear") = putting on a show, showing off. All flamboyance and flash with no substance.
14. kōukōu sōusōu 抠抠搜搜 — stingy; tight-fisted (which I think translates well because of the tíshǒu páng 提手旁 ("hand semantophore") in the Chinese characters kōu 抠 ("to pick") and sōu 搜 ("to search)!"
15. huòhuò 祸货 — to mess with something
16. kēchěn 磕碜 — ugly, unsightly; shabby.
17. sāmō 撒摸 — to size up, to get a feel for; to observe before acting / deciding
18. yādàn, xiǎoxiǎo 丫蛋，小小 — (lit. "girl egg") = a young girl; (lit., ""small small") = a young boy / "kiddo".
19. niàoxìng 尿性 — (lit. "pee nature") = someone who has aspirations.
(NOTE: this word has another more common meaning in NE Chinese: "one's own nature, ingrained temper; that's how he rolls" — usually in a pejorative sense. E.g., "Zhè háizǐ jiùshì gè huǎnghuà liánpiān de niàoxìng 这孩子就是个谎话连篇的尿性。) “Being full of lies is this child's ingrained temper. / Constant lying is how this kid rolls." [implicating that he would refuse to mend this bad habit and it is incurable.])
20. dēsè 嘚瑟 — to show off, to brag, to strut around.
21. dǎi fàn 逮饭 — to have a meal. This word is simply dànfàn 啖饭 in orthographic characters; 逮 dǎi is the historical phonological transformation for 啖 (dàn in Modern Standard Mandarin). "啖，食也。——《广雅》)
The following three all describe someone who is reckless, brainless, and slightly stupid. The tone and context, though, are a bit different among them.
22. biāohūhū 彪呼呼 (lit., "young tiger-like") = goofy, a bit of a dope
— Note: 彪呼呼 is usually not used in a mean and harsh way; rather, it is more often expressed in half-teasing, half-affectionate ways, such as referring to one's child as "dope", as a self-deprecating way to appear humble and polite.
23 and 24. nǎo yǒu bìng 脑有病 and nǎo zhǎng pào 脑长疱 (lit. "sick in brain" and "a pimple in brain") = stupid, thick-skulled, "something is wrong with them". These two words, though, really convey anger and meanness. One'd never want to use it on a non-enemy. ;)
25. láisāi 来塞 — to act cute, to sweet-talk (usually women or children); to be charmingly clingy. If it refers to an adult woman's behavior, it could also mean "to flirt by acting cute" — it's context dependent.
26. lǎo gādá 老嘎达 — the baby of the family, the little one.
— Note: in NE Chinese, xiǎo 小 (young) is expressed by lǎo 老 (old). For example, one's youngest aunt is not xiǎogū 小姑 or xiǎoyí 小姨, but lǎogū 老姑 and lǎoyí 老姨. A mother's youngest son is not called her xiǎo érzǐ 小儿子, but her lǎo érzǐ 老儿子.
27. shānpào 山炮 — (lit. "a mountain cannon") = a hill-billy. How direct! ;)
28. liāosāo 撩骚 — (lit. "to chat flirtatiously) — but instead of tightly associated with flirting, or sexual harassment, in NE Chinese it is used to describe those who stir up trouble out of nothing — someone mischievous. So, simply, "to mess around, to troll." Feel free (but only in a very traditional and strict NE Chinese context!!!) to say that a young schoolboy would tend to liāosāo 撩骚 "mess around" when he's left bored and alone at home with his loving grandma!
29. guàmǎzǐ 挂马子 — to flirt with girls, to date around. "To chase chicks", if one wishes to make an animal comparison between the two languages.
30. húchī hǎisāi 胡吃海塞 — to stuff one's face. To eat wildly.
31. hūchī dàichuǎn 呼哧带喘 — to pant heavily. It's not the same as No. 6 kēngchi biě dù 吭哧瘪肚. While the previous No.6 refers to speech manners, No.31 here refers to action manners. Any hard breathing after physical exertion would be hūchī dàichuǎn 呼哧带喘。
32. juē gùnr 撅棍儿 — (lit. "to break the stick") = to beat the strong guys. A badass! A real boss.
33. xuē nǐ 削你 — (lit. "to peel your skin") = to smack you, hit you, knock you down. For countless times during a NE Chinese kid's childhood would they hear mom screaming "I'm gonna 削你!" after they misbehave. [VHM: In the Mair household of the 40s and 50s, the misbehaving kids would hear mom yelling, "I'm going to get the black stick!"]
34. bōlegài 拨了盖 — knee cap. It is actually a Manchu (Tungusic) word, "pelegar", meaning "knee".
35. bālízǐ 笆篱子 — jail. Very directly fits its literal meaning — "the fence / bars" which prisoners sit behind. :) 巴篱子
36. shǎo chě lǐgēnr lèng 少扯里根儿愣 — Quit yapping. Cut the crap. “lǐgēn er lèng 里根儿愣” (ligerleng) mimics the sound of interlude percussion in traditional Chinese drama. So "stop your ding-a-ling-a-ling" = stop talking nonsense.
37. dà júzhǎng 大局长 = the chief director. The big boss.
38. sāyāzǐ 撒丫子 = to take off running
39. gǎir pì cháo liáng 改儿屁朝凉 — (lit. "he's 'butt turned cold'") = he's dead. He kicked the bucket.
40. hǔle bāji 虎了吧唧 = reckless, clueless, while acting rashly. Similar to #22 biāohūhū 彪呼呼, if you see the "tiger" imagery in a NE Chinese expression it usually refers to being silly.
wgj said,
November 12, 2025 @ 9:09 am
Item #1 laobizi does not refer to the nose, but rather the female genitalia (both pronounced bi, with different tones that get lost when unstressed) – as slangs tend to do.
Victor Mair said,
November 12, 2025 @ 10:35 am
@wgj
Please read Diana Shuheng Zhang's explanation for laobizi in #1 above, also refer to the definition for #1 given in the collection of Northeasternisms cited at the end of the first paragraph of the o.p.
wgj said,
November 12, 2025 @ 11:19 am
I respect the explanations by a native, but she may be young enough not to realize that slangs with dirty origins often get sanitized with time, making the origin no longer obvious. As to the linked article, I have no trust whatsoever in its content since the author self-identifies as an outsider having lived in the North-East for (only) 20 years.