成龍的廣告讓整個中國網絡都duang起來了

This Chinese character has taken China's internet by storm

這個漢字已風暴般席捲了中國互聯網

A new word is taking the internet by storm in China-- but no one knows quite what it means.

一個新詞彙席捲了中國網絡，但誰都不知道它到底是啥意思。

The character "duang" is so new that it does not even exist in the Chinese dictionary. But it has already spread like wildfire online in China, appearing more than 8 million times on China's micro-blogging site Weibo, where it spawned a top-trending hashtag that drew 312,000 discussions among 15,000 users. On China's biggest online search engine Baidu, it has been looked up almost 600,000 times. It's been noticed in the West too, with Foreign Policy seeing it as a "break the internet" viral meme - like a certain Kim Kardashian image, or a certain multicoloured dress.

duang是個新造詞，甚至在中文字典裏都不存在，但卻已經如同野火燎原版在中國網絡上迅速流行起來，在微博上出現了800萬次以上，成爲時下最熱門的話題標籤，吸引了15000名用戶的312000次的討論。在中國最大的線上搜索引擎百度上，它被查詢了60萬次。與此同時也引起了西方世界的關注，將其視爲"打破互聯網"的病毒式基因——就好像金卡戴珊或者一條搞不清顏色的裙子一樣。

But what does it mean?

但它到底是個什麼意思？

"Everyone's duang-ing and I still don't know what it means! Looks like it's back to school for me," said Weibo user Weileiweito.

"每個人都在duang來duang去的但是我還是不知道它到底啥意思！感覺好像回到讀書的時候一樣"微博用戶Weileiweito說。

Another user asked: "Have you duang-ed today? My mind is full of duang duang duang."

另外一個用戶問道："今天你的duang了嗎？我整個人都duang duang duang了。"

"To duang or not to duang, that is the question," wrote user BaiKut automan.

"duang還是不duang，這是個問題"，微博用戶BaiKut automan寫道。

"Duang" seems to be an example of onomatopoeia, a word that phonetically imitates a sound. It all seems to have started with Hong Kong action star Jackie Chan, who in 2004 was featured in a shampoo commercial where he said famously defended his sleek, black hair using the rhythmical-sounding "duang". The word resurfaced again recently after Chan posted it on his Weibo page. Thousands of users then began to flood Chan's Weibo page with comments, coining the word in reference to his infamous shampoo appearance.

duang似乎是一個擬聲詞例，用來模仿一種聲音。他始於香港武打明星成龍在2004年拍攝的一個洗髮水廣告。在裏面他一邊爲自己順滑的黑髮邊界一邊發出了"duang"的聲音。當他把這個視頻轉發到微博上後，這個詞最近又重新浮出水面。成千上萬的用戶開始涌向成龍的微博發評論，對着他臭名昭著的廣告形象duang個不停。

The word appears to have many different meanings, and there's no perfect translation, but you could use it as an adjective to give emphasis to the word that follows it. A kitten might be "duang cute", for example. Or you might be "very duang confused" by this blog.

這個詞可以有很多不同的意思，沒有確切的翻譯。但你可以把他當一個形容詞來用，來強調它後面的詞。舉個例子，kitty貓可以是"duang 好萌！"，或者你可能被這篇文章搞得"duang 暈死了！"

For readers of Chinese characters, the Jackie Chan theme is also apparent from the quirky way in which the word is written: a combination of Chan's Mandarin names.

對於看得懂漢字的人來說，也很容易從這個詞詭異的書寫方式上看出成龍來。因爲它就是由成龍的中文名字合起來的。