More catchphrases originating from the mainland have been adopted in Hong Kong. An ever active internet community provides fertile ground for creative wordsmiths to coin new expressions. The internet and social media have become the workstation for a veritable army of cyberstars to engage with fans. What they post is often packed with memes, and given their huge fan bases the viral expressions travel fast and wide.

Celebrities and pop culture media, like cinema and television, continue to play important roles. More TV dramas, movies and reality shows featuring A-list celebrities from the mainland, Hong Kong and Taiwan are accessible to mainland and Hong Kong audiences to get exposure to trendy phrases across the border, at low or no fees.

A prime example is the catchphrase popularized by Olympic bronze medalist Fu Yuanhui this summer. The 20-year-old Chinese swimmer became an internet darling for her funny facial expressions when she first reacted to the news that she had won a medal. Speaking later to reporters, Fu said in spontaneous humor that she had used "prehistoric powers" to pull off the feat in Rio, the equivalent to "the Force is with me" for Star Wars warriors in battle.

The meme quickly caught on among sinophones around the globe. When Fu joined a mainland Rio Olympic medalists delegation on a three-day visit to Hong Kong in late August, the SAR saw a fresh wave of news headlines and discussions by "blogebrities", including environmentalist and former director of the Hong Kong Observatory Lam Chiu-ying. Lam went to great lengths in a post on Aug 30 to explain that the origin of the phrase can be found in a Chinese classical text dating from some 1,500 years back, and that it essentially means the power of nature.

That's a slice of shared culture, recorded and retraceable in a classical text revered by all Chinese - mainland and Hong Kong alike. This level of commonality allows people to absorb catchphrases emerging from across the boundary.

No wonder Chief Executive Leung Chun-ying also borrowed the meme from Fu in mid-September to describe how the government had tried its best to alleviate the city's land shortage and housing woes.

It was hardly the first time that a CE of the SAR quoted a mainland catchphrase to make a point. In March 2011, former chief executive Donald Tsang Yam-kuen said in a speech in Beijing that the city appreciated the central government's inclusion of Hong Kong in the nation's 12th Five-Year Plan (2011-15), and as such 2011 would be a great year for Hong Kong to seize all the opportunities. For "great", Tsang said "geili", reportedly the hottest word in 2010 on the mainland, which literally means "give power or force", and later became the cyber buzzword for "cool", "supportive" or "exciting". It has since turned into a verb also, meaning "beef up" or "energize".

Mainland people are no strangers to Hong Kong-originated expressions. Many picked the phrases up naturally from the Hong Kong TV dramas and films they watched. Many acquired them to avoid being "out" when everyone around seemed to get it. My impression is people of my age seldom refer to the insect - cockroach - by the two-character word in Mandarin. Instead, we use the nickname that the male lead gave to a random cockroach being stepped on in the 1993 comedy film Flirting Scholar starring Stephen Chow Sing-chi and Gong Li. Chow, also a co-director of the film, performs with his signature wacky exaggeration, faking that he grieves for the untimely death of his "pet" cockroach by giving it a name and claiming it was his only companion in life - a pure attention-seeking act to get sympathy from the young lady he admires.

Probably because Chow's performance was so hilarious, the nickname for cockroach sticks with many mainland people to this day, when we talk about the insect in general or when we see a specimen of the creature roaming in an untidy kitchen.

There seems to be no avoiding catchphrases these days, such as when we browse for news, or click on a popular post shared by friends and associates. They are enticing spices sprinkled on the parlance of online content providers to attract more viewers. A little fluency in internet memes doesn't hurt. It makes the browsing experience a bit more entertaining, and may enrich a shared understanding with people living across the boundary.

(HK Edition 10/31/2016 page10)