Passive era
From China Digital Space
Revision as of 20:58, 6 May 2013 by Anne (talk | contribs) (moved Era of passive the tense to Passive era)
被时代 (bèi shídài): era of passive the tense
A time when euphemistic labels are given to actions that belie the underlying compulsion behind those actions--that is, the present.
In Chinese, the grammatical construction bèi-X means “to be X-ed,” and implies that that the X-ed party has been forced or suffered to X. For example, someone invited to drink tea (i.e. called in by the police for interrogation) could say she “was tea-drinked” (被喝茶 bèi hé chá). Netizens have coined a number of terms using this construction, giving rise to the “era of the passive tense.”