打酱油

What does 打酱油 mean?

打酱油, to go buy soy sauce, is what you say when the correct amount of opinion is none. Ask a Chinese friend what they think of a celebrity scandal, a relative's marriage drama or a company reorg, and the answer may be that they were just out buying soy sauce. The joke lives in the mismatch: the situation is loaded, the errand is trivial, and pretending the two are unrelated is the whole move. It pairs naturally with 吃瓜; you can stand in the front row of the crowd, melon in hand, and still insist you were never part of the story.

Where does 打酱油 come from?

The line comes from a 2008 street interview in Guangzhou. A TV reporter was asking passersby about a celebrity photo scandal; one man, apparently mid-errand, answered in Cantonese that it was none of his business and he was out buying soy sauce. Transcripts of the clip spread across forums, the Mandarin rendering 我是出来打酱油的 took over, and within a year the phrase was standard slang understood even by people who never saw the interview. By then nobody cared which scandal the man had been asked about, which is exactly the spirit of the phrase.

How to use 打酱油

• 群里的瓜我看了，但我不发言，我就是个打酱油的。
  Qún lǐ de guā wǒ kàn le, dàn wǒ bù fāyán, wǒ jiù shì gè dǎ jiàngyóu de.
  I read the group drama, sure, but I'm not weighing in. I'm just out buying soy sauce.
• 记者想采访路人对新规的看法，大爷摆摆手：打酱油，打酱油。
  Jìzhě xiǎng cǎifǎng lùrén duì xīn guī de kànfǎ, dàyé bǎi bǎi shǒu: dǎ jiàngyóu, dǎ jiàngyóu.
  A reporter tried to get a passerby's opinion on the new rules; the man waved him off: just buying soy sauce, just buying soy sauce.