what is "chio bu"?

[flotsam]

Hi there, I'm from singapore. I'm in my 20s & our peers often label pretty women, chio1 bu4. from what i know it's been distorted by the younger generation. i 've also heard that it's a rather uncouth form of addressing women. does anyone know what it exactly means? is it used in other hokkien speaking places as well?

[ppk]

its a new hokkien slang which derived from 'chio', which means pretty, and 'bu', which means 'female'(a hen is, therefore called a 'guei bu', with guei meaning chicken. in ancient dialects adjectives can be place behind the noun). popular among younger singaporeans.

[flotsam]

is there any derogatory meaning in "chio"?

[ppk]

no derogatory meaning but it not a refined way to put it. the common word is 'swee'(瑞,simpified chinese fonts), meaning good or auspicious originally but used to describe beauty in hokkien. in old days a girl that bring good luck to the family after marriage is considered beautiful. different standards.

'bu' (母) is however used to describe female animals only, so sometimes its quite offensive using it alone on people. but chiobu can be generally accepted.

[nokko]

hhmm, i would have thought "chio" is Mand: xiu4 秀 , but somehow "chio bu" sounds like "show girl" to me, like the "tiger show" thing in SEA, which probably makes it sounds bad... maybe I have mistaken the sound of "chio" with "show"...

Speaking of tiger, I have this little sound clip, singing "Tiger Time" thing in Singaporean Hokkien, not bad voice, hilarious though, has anyone heard of it? I don't know where to post this clip, perhaps I can email to anyone interested...

regards
nokko

[ppk]

i dun think 'chio' is xiu4. i'll try to find out. 'x-' vowel in mandarin is usually 's-' or 'h-' in hokkien.

[Dylan Sung]

I would have thought "bu" was perhaps the character 婦 rather than 母.


Dyl.

[ppk]

dont think so, then 'lao bu' bcomes 'old lady' instead of 'mother', and 'gao bu' bcomes 'lady dog'. besides, 'bu' aways pair up with 'gang', 'gang eh bu eh' meaning 'is it a male or female'. i think 'fu' should be 'hu', closer to 'lady', or 'fu'ren' in mandarin.

[Ping]

Hi,

I don't think so. In traditional Hokian (or Minnan), the 'chio' can have different meaning. When it is used to describe the youth, it means the boy or girl is very eager to have the sexal partners.

On the other hand, I am not sure what the word 'bu' means. Because, if it refers to 'female', you have to use 'mu' but not 'bu' or, it it sound very close to 'pu' the meaning should be mould.

If it sounds like 'pu', then, the first part 'chio' should be pronounsed with 'n' tone, thus, it may be the other meaning which means, there are some mould on the face ===> it can also understand for describing the ladies with too much make-up on the face.

[Casey]

There are two different "chio"s here:
The one ppk referred to is "俏". It means pretty (usually for women). It is not derogatory.
The second one which Ping refered to is "_肖" with a left hand side similar to that of "dog" (狗). In Hokkien, "起_肖" = "发情".