师父 vs 师傅

What's the difference between 师父 and 师傅, other than how it's written?

师父
1) can also mean 师傅
2) a honorific title for monks, nuns, and priests

师傅
1) the teachers who impart their profession skills to others
2) a honorific title for people who are skilled in their profession, eg 厨师傅(chef) 木匠师傅(carpenter)

In olden times, the people/disciples who learn from 师傅s usually start learning when they were very young. The 师傅s' ages thus were around the same as the disciples' fathers. Added to that was the fact that the disciples treated the 师傅s with respect akin to the respect they gave their own fathers, plus usually the 师傅s were male, which often resulted in 师傅 being written as 师父, and people in general accepted this.

Nowadays, though, 师傅s are not necessarily someone as old as the student's father, and might also be a female, so to address a teacher, using 师傅 would be more appropriate.

On the other hand, using 师父 to address a teacher would sound more affectionate, as there is an underlying meaning of 师父=父.

Can one use 师母 instead of 师父 to address a female teacher then?

In this day and age, the term has evolved to include female teachers, though it is more commonly understood that 师母 == 师父's wife.

Zombie Fans

"Zombie fans" is one of those terms which has multiple meanings.

It can mean
1) People who love all things related to zombies
2) People who are fans of "The Walking Dead"
3) Fake followers on social media

The third is a straight translation from the Chinese term "僵尸粉", a term that originated from the internet, as one can see from what it means.

It is said that people even used zombie fans to "earn money" - they created fake accounts and followed a particular person, and after some time, starts to decrease that person's number of followers, and then sends a private message to that person to "ask" for payment so as to maintain the number of followers.

When it comes to money, people are indeed creative.

The Happy Birthday Song

Everyone knows how to sing the birthday song - "Happy birthday to you~" repeat 4 times. One variation would include changing the 3rd time to "Happy birthday to [insert name]".

In my school days, another variation went:
"Happy birthday to you,
You were born in the zoo,
With monkeys and elephants,
Happy birthday to you."

Sounds ok yeah? Not too offensive yeah?

So the other day I got to know of another version straight from the Nephew's mouth. It started the same, "Happy birthday to you". And the next line went - "You were born in the sky". I was like, wow, born in the sky? That's... nice? Sky ma, we love the sky, don't we?... though it doesn't rhyme with "you"...

The 3rd line surprisingly rhymed with "sky", but when I heard it I was quite horrified: "You will drop down and die~" .................................... and ended with "Happy birthday to you."

... Speechless.

The meaning of 666

In terms of Chinese, 666 is an internet slang that means something along the lines of "good job", "well done".

In most parts of China, “溜”, pronounced "liu", means "good at doing something", and the number 6 is also pronounced "liu" in Chinese, and that's how it came about.

This slang was first used in online games, likely MMORPG games, before it became widely used. Which is logical when you think on it, as those who do play online games would know that typing fast often saves lives. Typing "666" is definitely faster than typing the same in Chinese using the QWERTY keyboard - imagine wasting time choosing the correct word in the midst of battle!

Increasing the number of sixes, I guess, would mean deepening the degree of the praise, similar to "!" versus "!!!!".

AA制, AB制, and AO制

Remember the AA post previously?

Apparently it's also used in China to mean going Dutch. They call it "AA制" or "AA treat", where "AA" means "Algebraic Average".

From this comes another one: "AB制", or "AB treat".

This has become a fad among young people, where males would choose to pay a bigger slice of the bill, and the remainder would be paid by the females dining with them.

What about the male paying all for the female?

Yup, that would be the "AO制". The "O" here stands for zero, because the female basically paid zero cents.