Slang on China’s internet changes faster than…well, something that changes really fast. It may be less than a year old in the real world, but geili, last year’s biggest linguistic innovation, is practically prehistoric in internet terms. What’s buzzing now is “hold steady.” Sort of.
It’s a tough term to translate because it’s a fusion of the English word “hold” with the Chinese character “住“. So hold住 could be translated literally as “hold steady” (no not that Hold Steady), “hold firmly”, “hold tightly”, “hold fast,” etc. On the net, it’s now being used to mean a number of things. Here are some real world examples translated from Sina Weibo. Mouse over the text to read the original Chinese and see how the new term is being used, or just look at the bolded English text.
My foot injury will soon be totally healed, today I’m holding steady…I won’t need to hobble around anymore!
I’m still two weeks away from payday but I don’t have any money, I need to hang in there.
Hold steady, others have become hysterical but I remain calm.
I couldn’t contain myself, I watched Hannah Montana all afternoon and my heart is full of happiness, she is always my medicine.
Understand choice, learn to let go, be able to endure loneliness, be able to withstand temptation. Hold steady.
If at this point, you’re thinking this whole thing is a little weird, you’re not wrong.
The term comes from this segment on a Taiwanese TV show that features “Miss Lin” giving students a lecture on how to be “fashion” [sic] while boarding a bus (and in public generally). It’s a send-up of a number of things, but mainly it’s an over-the-top mockery of how it’s become fashionable in some circles to talk the way she’s speaking; English words, snotty foreign cadence, etc. One of the many English-Chinese hybrids she sprinkled into her performance is “hold住”, which you can catch around the 2:07 mark in the video.
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