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我想这个穿着红色衣服的男孩已经被续了。

In this sentence, the word "续" means life-prolonging, and when people say this they usually mean that someone was being life-prolonged to somebody instead of someone was being life-prolonged by somebody. Why?

skygate
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    It's a very long story. – Stan Jun 18 '16 at 12:08
  • @Stan Please explain :D, I am so much confused with it! – skygate Jun 18 '16 at 13:21
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    As I have another long answer to finish I can only give a brief summary here: 2009, in Chongqing province of China, a 13 year old boy wearing a red dress played erotic asphyxiation to death – although the fact was simple, it's extremely shocking to the conservative local. Then an urban legend formed: it was an evil black magic that Jiang Zemin the Elder wanted to prolong his life. After that, 续命 had become an Internet slang in China (mostly in a joking sense). – Stan Jun 18 '16 at 13:38
  • regarding preceding comment cf. http://bbs.tianya.cn/post-16-656982-1.shtml – user6065 Jun 18 '16 at 13:44
  • @Stan I see, but it was the grammar that confused me. For example, 被杀了 means someone was being killed "by" somebody, but 被续了 means someone was being life-prolonged "to" somebody. It is reversed. – skygate Jun 18 '16 at 14:11
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    You're right, the grammar here is confusing. It might be interpreted as an abbreviation of "被（长者用来）续（命）了", but it's not necessary to be too serious about Internet slangs. – Stan Jun 18 '16 at 14:25
  • @Stan Abbreviation? that explains it perfectly. This abbreviation you've got for me...excited! – skygate Jun 18 '16 at 14:39
  • "By brute-force worshiping the Toad is unfavorable." – Unknown mogician. – Stan Jun 18 '16 at 14:56
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    Excited! This is the first Elder related thread I see on this site. Stay young, stay simple! +1s – Archeosudoerus Jun 18 '16 at 15:30
  • @Stan Highest instruction: Literary worship instead of martial worship! – Archeosudoerus Jun 18 '16 at 15:33
  • To be honest this ungrammatical usage is rare to me even in elder-worship subculture. My impression upon seeing your sentence is "the boy in red is being life-prolonged (by some mogical means similar to that for The Elder)." – NS.X. Jun 18 '16 at 18:56
  • "Life-prolonged" "to"? If any error here, it is in the English grammar. His life was extended. Period. If by something, or by someone, is irrelevant. If there is a "to" involved, it would mean his "soul" would carry on to the "next life", taking on another life. –  Jun 18 '16 at 20:22
  • @倪阔乐 This is a elder-worship thing. It means " I think the (life force of ) this boy in red has been used to prolong (Jiang Zemin the Elder's life) – Archeosudoerus Jun 18 '16 at 22:35
  • @倪阔乐 Frankly speaking I don't approve with your point. As Stan have said, this is actually some kind of abbreviation of "someone was being used by the Elder to prolong his life.". Besides, prolong is the proper use of prolonging one's life, not extend. – skygate Jun 18 '16 at 22:38
  • @NS.X. Actually it is very common in toad worshiping communities now, when someone was being banned from the site, or being water meter checked by the cyber police, mogicians would say that someone 已经被续了. – skygate Jun 18 '16 at 22:53
  • 亦可赛艇(exciting) 拿衣服(naive) 图样图森破(too young too simple) 加一秒(+1s) 谈笑风生(talk cheerfully and humorously) 钦定(made by imperial order) and etc. These are all of Moha（膜蛤 toad worship) culture. It's very popular in Chinese online communities, like zhihu.com, weibo.com . The participators call themselves 膜法师（魔法师，magician, wizard who masters Moha) – ElpieKay Jun 20 '16 at 02:35
  • This is a Chinese meme used by the younger generation. I don't have a clue why this has become so popular. It seems you know the exact literal meaning. Imo, that's enough, there is no need to take it too serious. – hrzhu Jun 21 '16 at 16:45

3 Answers3

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It's a Chinese (political) joke. It has been told that a boy is killed to lengthen the former (×2) chairman, Zemin Jiang. But it's not proven to be true yet. It's alright to used chatting with people of new generations in China. And it has somehow become a meme among them.

When people say 续命、续一秒、+1s , they are also talking about that.

  • "But it's not proven to be true yet." Are you serious? Such a superstition thing is of course false. – Stan Jun 19 '16 at 06:17
  • @Stan I've said that it's a joke, because a great number of Chinese people dislike him in some ways. The story is obviously faulty, but who cares? We just like the joke. We have bunches of such joke, if you want, search for 膜蛤、香港记者、华莱士、谈笑风生、苟利国家生死以、螳臂当车的歹徒, but notice that these are censored on Baidu. –  Jun 19 '16 at 06:24
  • "Zemin Jiang"? What is that supposed to mean? –  Jun 19 '16 at 07:13
  • @倪阔乐 The former former chairman of China, 江泽民 –  Jun 19 '16 at 07:17
  • That would be Jiang Zemin, then. –  Jun 19 '16 at 08:25
  • @倪阔乐 Well, maybe I need to post a question somewhere to distinguish between Chinese and foreign naming orders. –  Jun 19 '16 at 08:54
  • @PENGUINLIONG (sigh) the official translation for The Elder's name is exactly Jiang Zemin. Similarly, Yao Ming, no one would call him Ming Yao in the western world. – Stan Jun 19 '16 at 08:58
  • @Stan Okay, that's new knowledge for me. I saw surnames placed last on some papers, which confused me. –  Jun 19 '16 at 09:03
  • @PENGUINLIONG the problem is, there's no official standard for that. The Forename Surname, Forename SURNAME, or Surname, Forename pattern for Mainland Chinese names is widely used in academic papers. However, it's interesting that many celebrities don't follow those patterns. – Stan Jun 19 '16 at 09:19
  • @Stan That's tricky, anyway. –  Jun 19 '16 at 09:21
  • Simply don't change naming order. You will just add to the confusion. –  Jun 19 '16 at 11:00
  • @倪阔乐 unfortunately the confusion is unavoidable now (most Chinese scholars I know use the "Forename Surname" style). Especially for those names having only two characters but the surname is not obvious, it's difficult to judge even for native speakers. – Stan Jun 19 '16 at 18:22
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    Western scientific journals may have a square and rigid mindset, but that is no excuse for further spreading the abuse. The day I see a newspaper write "Jinping Xi" or "Zedong Mao", I will just ignore it as a product made by complete idiots, who have nothing to contribute on China issues. –  Jun 19 '16 at 18:41
  • @倪阔乐 But, in China, we are taught to use the Fore. Sur. style (as the 'correct' one). The problem exists not only in China but the entire E. Asia I think. There is still no some effective solutions. Maybe we need new ISO standards. Lol. –  Jun 19 '16 at 18:48
  • @PENGUINLIONG I was taught there's no standard. But even the fore-sur style varies in two versions for names with more than two characters: Ze-Dong Mao or Zedong Mao? (And yes, currently the official translation is Mao Zedong.) – Stan Jun 19 '16 at 18:59
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    Informal standard: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Naming_conventions_(Chinese) TL;DR: do not change naming order, don't use hyphens, don't use CamelCase, don't change anything at all. –  Jun 19 '16 at 19:04
  • @倪阔乐&Stan Hmm, I had never seen the version (with hyphen) before. But, anyway, I've learned a lot. Thx dudes. –  Jun 19 '16 at 19:15
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    You guys are off topic, aren't we talking about the Elder? Mike Wallace called the Elder Jiang Zemin too. What is to point to argue about it? – skygate Jun 19 '16 at 23:57
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    @skygate If Mike Wallace called that then it should be that way. Because he is much "higher" than us. – Archeosudoerus Jun 20 '16 at 02:21
  • @zyc Of course! – skygate Jun 20 '16 at 05:34
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If we say『续』，it is only used on Jiang Zemin the Elder when we refer to one's life is lengthened. For other people, it should mean that his life time is given to the Elder.

E.M.
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被续 is a China internet meme.

A hasty investigation and verdict on a mysterious death of a (kid in Chongqing) had spark many speculation back in Jiang Zemin authoritarian era.

One of the ridiculous speculation/conspiracy theory is about making use of black magic to prolong(续命) the life of some prominent figure, where the kid is the "sacrificial lamb". I.e. "我想这个穿着红色衣服的男孩已经被续了."

China netizen think the conspiracy theory is damn funny :

  1. Chinese is a communist country, where some superstitious should be eradicated by the communist party itself.
  2. It is related to a story in Chinese popular literature "The Three Kingdoms", where a prominent character attempt to use magic to prolong his own life.

So China Netizen keep making fun of the ridiculous 续命(prolong another life) with sarcasm, thus some come out with 续命一秒 (prolong the life by 1 second). Thus 续命一秒 become a sarcasm for some vain action.

mootmoot
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