佛系

What does 佛系 mean?

佛系 labels a way of moving through life without fighting anything: it's fine, it's OK, no big deal. The word took off as a suffix, so people talk about 佛系恋爱 (a low-effort relationship), 佛系养生 (half-hearted wellness), or 佛系玩家 (a gamer who shrugs off losses). There is nothing religious about it; the joke is that young people put on monk-like calm as armor against pressure. The mood overlaps with the later vocabulary of withdrawal such as 躺平.

Where does 佛系 come from?

In December 2017, the WeChat account 新世相 published an article titled 《第一批90后已经出家了》 (“the first batch of post-90s has already left home to become monks”), which catalogued young people responding to work and dating with 都行、可以、没关系. The piece spread through WeChat Moments within days, and BBC Chinese covered the phenomenon on 27 December 2017. By the end of 2018 the term had been added to the annual top-ten network expressions list from the National Language Resources Monitoring and Research Center.

How to use 佛系

• 同事问周末要不要加班，我佛系地回了三个字：都行吧。
  Tóngshì wèn zhōumò yào bú yào jiābān, wǒ fó xì de huí le sān gè zì: dōu xíng ba.
  When a colleague asked whether I'd work the weekend, I gave the full Buddhist reply: sure, whatever works.
• 排队排了四十分钟，前面还差十桌，我们佛系地掏出手机开始刷视频。
  Páiduì pái le sìshí fēnzhōng, qiánmiàn hái chà shí zhuō, wǒmen fó xì de tāochū shǒujī kāishǐ shuā shìpín.
  Forty minutes into the queue with ten tables to go, we simply pulled out our phones, chill as monks, and scrolled videos.