Meaning of 描红画绿

[Entropy_Rising]

Hi guys, anyone know what this phrase means? Dictionary-wise it looks like "tracing red, painting green," which I guess means "tracing over red characters with green ink" or something like that. It's obviously an idiom. The context I found this phrase in was a doctor talking and her justification of mandatory pregnancy tests for their 16-18 year old students. She said the she was particularly concerned about girls with 描红画绿 on their faces, (实际上，校医真正关注的是那些每天在脸上“描红画绿”的女生). I'm guessing this is an idiom for promiscuity? Something like "girls who wear makeup" and associated connotations?

If that's the case I find it hilarious that the school doctor wants to impose mandatory pregnancy tests on the whole female student population because of a few girls who sleep around.

[monto]

描红 alone means "tracing over red characters with black ink" or something like that. I used to do that to learn brush wrinting when I was a boy.

As for 描红画绿, it just means "to put/paint colors" (literally "to paint the red and the green".------- the 红 and 绿 should not be understood so specifically here. There are many Chinese expressions work the same way, 比如：

说三道四、走东窜西、哭天喊地 etc

脸上“描红画绿”的女生 means

Girls (or Female students) with 'colors put' on their faces.

The quotation marks mean that it's not actually so. And thus we can guess that it is make up that is to mean. In so writing, the writer also implied his/her attitude to the make up of the girls --- something no good.

[Entropy_Rising]

Thanks for your reply. It's funny when you realize the person being quoted is basically saying "We're really concerned about those red-lipped hussies that are more inclined to doing you-know-what."

[monto]

Entropy_Rising:

..."We're really concerned about those red-lipped hussies that are more inclined to doing you-know-what."

It no funny at all to me. That's meybe because we are from different societies and cultures.

What the person said had been exactly true, and still quite true in China.

The idea still can help yuo spot the girls doing you-know-what business in certain public locations (such as hotel, bars, KTV etc.)

[roddy]

The article is here if anyone is interested. I was curious as to where this actually was so went looking.

Didn't read the whole thing, but apparently they're only going to do the tests once a year. So if you timed it right . . .

[Entropy_Rising]

It no funny at all to me. That's meybe because we are from different societies and cultures.

What the person said had been exactly true, and still quite true in China.

The idea still can help yuo spot the girls doing you-know-what business in certain public locations (such as hotel, bars, KTV etc.)

I hope that I'm reading you wrong... but I firmly do think that "if a woman wears a lot of makeup, she must be a total prostitute" is a sort of preposterous idea. I don't think it's a different culture thing, I think it's a logic thing. I mean, I could draw a venn diagram. A big oval labeled "women who wear lipstick." I would then draw a tiny circle labled "women who sleep around alot" and that tiny circle would exist on the edge of the big oval. Because most women who wear lipstick aren't so promiscuous that they are an STD threat to society, and many women who are promiscuous don't wear makeup.

@Roddy: the public outrage at the mandatory tests convinced the skill officials to cancelt their plans.

[monto]

Entropy_Rising：

I hope that I'm reading you wrong... but I firmly do think that "if a woman wears a lot of makeup, she must be a total prostitute" is a sort of preposterous idea

.

So do I.

It is "Girl students of age 16 - 18 with heavy make up" that we are talking about first.

They are high school students in China. There are restrictions even to the least make up, not to say the heavy ones.

Also, traditionally heavy make up was done in China only by:

1) Prostitutes;

2) Those on stage or show. They were not considered of dignity, though this has changed nowadays;

3)"Silly" women, who do not know how to do it or just what is proper thing to do.

As an ordinary honest Chinese, also a quite tolerant parent, I would kick my daughter out of the door if I had one and she was one the "Girl students of age 16 - 18 with heavy make up" . Fortunately, I don't have suth a daughter and neither the most Chinese parents.

By

"The idea still can help yuo spot the girls doing you-know-what business in certain public locations (such as hotel, bars, KTV etc.)"

I only only only mean that heavy make up as one of the criteria is helpful clue to identify prosts in those places.