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Tuhao () is a Chinese term referring to people of wealth. The term has several related and differing definitions throughout time. In its original literary form, it refers to those of prominent and wealthy backgrounds. In modern use, the term has also become a popular slang used to describe the nouveau riche. Pejoratively, the internet slang can be understood to carry on the meaning of "uncouth nouveau riche", "tacky" or "extravagant".
Before August 2013, 'Tuhao' was a popular internet slang used to describe irrational and over-consumed online game players, who were also called "RMB warriors" as they use renminbi to purchase in-game items and suppress regular players who did not have the ability to purchase as many items. They won by their purchasing power, rather than their online game techniques or tactics. Its usage has now extended to daily life. People who purchase a large amount of figures, models and luxury goods are also given the nickname 'Tuhao'.
The word 'Tuhao' has gone viral recently since its first appearance as a joke on the Chinese social platform Weibo in 2013: A young man asks a Buddhist monk, 'I'm wealthy, but unhappy. What should I do?' The Buddhist monk says, "Define 'wealthy.' " The young man answers, 'I have millions in the bank and three apartments in central Beijing. Is that wealthy?' The Buddhist monk silently holds out a hand. The young man says: 'Master, are you telling me that I should be thankful and give back?' Instead of telling him to live a simple and happy life, the Buddhist monk replied 'Tuhao, let's be friends!" The joke implies that the tuhao's wealth was so substantial that it even made a Buddhist monk greedy.
Tuhao jin (土豪金) means "tuhao gold" or "the gold of tuhao".
On September 20, 2013, Apple Inc. launched a new champagne gold iPhone 5s. The official price for the golden version of the iPhone 5s was 5,288 yuan (US$862). But in China, the price of a golden iPhone 5s was above 8,800 yuan (US$1,435). It had become a must-have item for many Chinese and soon sold out in China, prompting huge reactions on the Chinese internet. The media nicknamed the iPhone's gold color as "tuhao jin", denoting the lavish, garish and excessive tastes of China's emerging extravagant "tuhaos".
The phrase, "tuhao jin" was then widely used to make sarcastic remarks at gold-plated luxury cars, the opulent interior of a Chongqing school to, most recently, the golden exterior of the People's Daily office tower in Beijing. On the Chinese social network Weibo, one user mocked the building's golden exterior, exclaiming, "Wow! What a massive 'tuhao jin'..."
The fact is that Chinese has always had derogatory terms for the rich and unsophisticated. "Tu" (the same tu from tuhao) was one. Tuhao is significant not because it is another such term, but because it is a parody of such terms, and the discourse of crass, status-driven consumption which underlies these. "Tuhao" indicates fusions of rustic roots with material ambition and gaudy expressions. However, in taking this to the "nth" degree, the term also evinces a new capacity for Chinese to laugh at themselves. Cultural sociologist Michael Griffiths stated, "for consumers in China's higher-tier cities (who have already been around this kind of crass materialism for a couple of decades now), tuhao represents a tongue-in cheek satire of China's breakneck pursuit of material affluence in the get-rich-quick era. It also heralds a future where face-driven materialism will be less obviously paramount in consumption." Related trends can be seen all over China's consumerism economy today, not least in changes to the luxury sector.
In 2014, South Korean drama, 'Hotel King', made an ironic depiction of a rich Chinese man in one of its episodes, triggering a huge controversy among Chinese netizens.
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