The Word of the Week comes from China Digital Space’s Grass-Mud Horse Lexicon, a glossary of terms created by Chinese netizens and frequently encountered in online political discussions. These are the words of China’s online “resistance discourse,” used to mock and subvert the official language around censorship and political correctness.
80K Brother flaunts his wealth. (Mop)
On September 2, 2011, “Jackie_郑文” posted a bill from a dinner he shared with nine other friends on his Sina Weibo account. The bill included a number of exorbitantly priced exotic dishes, including giant salamander (a nationally-protected endangered species),
Australian lobster, king crab, Kobe beef, and 15-year-old Maotai liquor. The total bill was more than RMB 80,000 (about $12,525).
In his own defense, “Jackie” stated, “The dinner was so expensive because the prices were so high. I had no choice” (我吃这个饭这么贵是因为餐费这么贵。我也没有办法).
Details from Jackie’s microblog account suggested he was a student at the Central Party School, and there was widespread speculation that Jackie belonged to the rich second generation.
When details of the dinner and Jackie’s other ostentatious shows of wealth [zh] became public, netizens reacted strongly and dubbed him “80K Brother.” Netizen reaction to this conspicuous consumer mirrored the uproar over Guo Meimei just months earlier.
For more information, watch this subtitled Chinese report from New Tang Dynasty TV.
