Monday, October 10, 2011 | By: Ginger Huang (黄原竟)

If you hear someone say, “The Korean soap opera I’m watching is so full of dog blood!” (我看的韩剧太狗血了！Wǒ kàn de Hánjù tài gǒuxiě le), don’t worry—it doesn’t mean the characters are chowing down on dog meat. Actually, this phrase has nothing to do with dog slaughter; these days, “dog blood” has come to mean cliché, cheesy or melodramatic.

This slang originated with the Peking Opera, whose stories often featured pseudo-Taoist shysters who claimed they could expel evil spirits by spilling bowls of dog blood. Given that this won’t do much more than get the SPCA on your tail, “spilling dog blood” (洒狗血 sǎ gǒuxiě) came to mean being pretentious.

Recently the term has evolved to describe hackneyed plots in popular books and movies (called “dog-blood plots,” 狗血情节gǒuxiě qíngjié). To wit: bad guys who make epic speeches while about to shoot the good guy; heartbroken lovers who dash outside into thunderstorms; a heroine who falls in love with her fiancé’s best friend. You can even apply this to real life, when you run into some high-octane drama or serendipitous coincidence: “Life is like a dog-blood soap opera!” (生活就像狗血剧！Shēng​huó jiù xiàng gǒu​xiějù!)

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