China Online

To paraphrase a blundering local politician quoted in this book, Chinese must be one of the easiest languages to learn — why else would nearly 1.4 billion people speak it?

"China Online" is an insight into contemporary China's so-called Netspeak, revealing the ability of the country's 700 million Internet users to coin bizarre neologisms.

You might be familiar with the acronym DINK ("Double Income No Kids"), but Chinese netizens have creatively expanded it to DINKWAD ("... With A Dog") and DINS ("Double Income No Sex").

Although the book lists terms for social phenomena exclusive to China, including ways to describe "perfect" partners, other terms — such as "corporate insects" (melancholy city dwellers) — have parallels in Japan.