Nick names are common for western students and Chinese little kids, but today, as the university students are more fashionable and open, strange, meaningful and funny nick names are also catching on at campuses.
Besides the nick names, the big boys and girls on local campus also invented a lot of new words and phrases, short, funny and vivid.
They are like ripples in the dull campus, dotting the gray hardworking days of the young people.
If a boy student often bursts out strange words abhorrent of normal logic, he won't be called "lunatics" any more, but "black humor".
A slow "worker" at the toilet, or the one who frequents the toilet several times a day, will be called "MacToilet", borrowing from MacDonald. That word sounds friendly, but actually are disturbed expression of those whose normal term of "natural call" are disordered by MacToilet's dominance there.
If one makes loud noise when passing air current from his body(fart), he will get the nice name of "Mr Big Bang".
And a boy with many girl friends is crowned as X Sir. X is a variable that stands for different student's surname. For example, Lee Xiaolong is called Lee Sir and Jacky Chan is called Chan Sir. "sir" in English means gentleman, but in Chinese, that pronunciation stands for a Chinese character referring to the feature of a man who is erotic with women. Being called X Sir means your friends are kidding you and your loose relationship with girls.
In the nick names, "Tyson" never points to strong man who looks like boxer, but to those delicate with words -- "Tyson"s on campus kill arch rivals by words and articles, not bite them by teeth.
Plagiarizing other students' homework, or euphemized as "consulting" one's homework, is common on campus. Different departments have their unique terms for the popular action.
Students with computers major call it "copy". Biology department students say "clone". Journalism students more directly, sharp as "pirate".
Students, especially those with Chinese Literature Major, have made many rhetoric beautifications to the daily message slips.
Message slips refer to small pieces of paper on which roommates leave written message for others such as "I'm in the canteen, please leave phone message for me" and "I'm out, back at 23:00".
Today, some sentences are too rhetoric that they bewilder even close friends, but they are interesting and with intelligent sparkles.
For example, a boy student left a message saying "I've gone home, see you six years later." before the weekend. His roommates stunned at the "six years" and started to worry about him for the whole weekend.
But two days later, the writer came back just as normal Mondays.
Is it a joke? No. The message is none of fun.
It's only a showcase of the big boy's rhetoric skills. In Chinese poems, there is one sentence, "Aparting with you for only one day, but I feel like the passage of three years," expressing one's deep missing for another.
"If one day is three years, a couple of days will just be six years, right?" the boy explained, also stunned everyone at the dorm.
Too much imagination and too sensitive, some sigh but still amused.
(eastday.com September 14, 2002)
