Meaning and English translation of 花痴?

[tooironic]

What exactly does 花痴 refer to?

 

It seems to mean a girl who drools after cute boys. Am I on the right track?

 

Is there a more accurate definition? And any equivalent in English?

 

Thanks in advance.

[anonymoose]

There's a good website called Google that allows you to search for this kind of thing.

 

According to one source it means:

 

花痴，比喻一个人，不管男女，过分的仰慕异性，只要随时看到喜欢的人，他的行为态度就会变得异常，容易得意忘形的在喜欢异性的面前做一些幼稚的动作，有一点像白痴，看到花儿开，就喜欢，害怕没人要。。。。“花痴”其实是中医的一种病名，也就是现代医学所说的“性欲亢进”。所谓“性欲亢进”，是指男性或女性对性行为要求过于强烈为主要特征的疾病。主要症状有：性兴奋出现频繁，性要求异常迫切，性生活频率增加，房事时间延长等。比如，有的患者既非新婚，又非两地分居或久别重逢，性欲却一直特别旺盛，无论白天或是晚上，均有强烈的性要求；并且有时一天之中要求多次房事，对房事时间也要求较长，远远超出正常人所能接受的水平。该病患者的性反应超常强烈，甚至达到不分场合、不避亲疏的程度；并对握手、拥抱也能产生强烈的性欲，这就是“花痴”。

[skylee]

http://www.mdbg.net/chindict/chindict.php?page=worddict&wdrst=1&wdqb=%E8%8A%B1%E7%97%B4

[Nathan Mao]

I've seen it mostly used exactly the way you described.

 

Depending on the context, it can be more about sex, or more about romantic impulses.

 

For a guy, you could use "horn-dog", for a female, you could use "cougar" if the female in question is old enough.

 

You could also use "girl-crazy" or "boy-crazy".

 

Compare/contrast with 好色.  The definitions I get when looking it up are all centered on "lust", but I've also seen that used just to mean a guy that likes pretty women (meaning, concerned only/purely with her looks).

[陳德聰]

I use "infatuated" a lot.

[Nathan Mao]

I might be wrong, but I think infatuated is usually specifically directed at one person, whereas 花痴 implies a general state of boy/girl-craziness. 

Or to put another way, infatuation is a judgment of a specific relationship between 2 specific people as being shallow, or not true love; but 花痴 is a (usually negative) judgment of the subject's state of mind, laughing at them for being so sex/romance-obsessed, because the feeling of desire/lust/whatever is non-specific, to the point of extremely low standards.

[陳德聰]

I don't think it is necessarily that negative, but more to poke fun. I think of it and 腐女 in the same light 吐槽-type manner.

As for any translation, it's best to look at context and the reality of the situation that's being described rather than stick to some 1-to-1 word correspondence.

花痴 is equivalent enough in meaning to "to be extremely infatuated"... and can be directed at a specific person just as easily as it can be directed at people as a general behaviour. Eg. 对某人花痴 or just as you described, a general state of being.

But it's also a noun, being the person who goes crazy over every guy/gal they see. I've heard it used as an adjective too...

That being said I think your focus on the lusty-ness of it is not terribly accurate.

[skylee]

I agree with #7. 

 

Female audience of TV drama / films often describe themselves as 花痴 when they find some actors/roles extremely attractive.  This has little to do with "lust" and it tends to fade quite quickly.

 

Not sure if I have seen it used on male, though. But perhaps I just haven't paid attention.

[Nathan Mao]

Eh, Chinese are still rather conservative in speech.

 

If a girl is described as drooling when she looks at a cute guy, she's not thinking about him buying her roses.  But you need to be extremely close for her to admit that her being 花痴 means that she wants a man in her bed.  Not just sex, but all the things that go with that kind of intimate relationship.

 

So you gotta think between the lines.

 

However, I admit/insist it is extremely context-based to determine whether 花痴 is a light-hearted poking fun at a girl's desire for a boyfriend or a rather demeaning comment on her being desperate for a guy, or a self-deprecating pro-active self-defense.  Which is why I put "lust/romance" every time I mentioned it.

 

(the one time I put "lust" by itself, that was in reference to 好色, which dictionary definitions define as lust/laviciousness, but which I've only encountered as the word described for men who like pretty women to the exclusion of plain women with good personalities...so dictionary definitions don't always cover the full range of how a word can be used)

 

Point being, Chinese is a high-context language and culture.  In my experience, nearly every description has a positive sense and a negative sense, and not via sarcasm.  It depends on who is talking to whom about whom.

 

I've never heard 花痴 being used for being attracted to a celebrity, but I admit I haven't encountered it that many times that I know of.  I'll keep an eye out for that usage.

 

I've never seen it referred to a male, either, but anonymoose's sosowenen link/quote says both males and females, and confirms the sexual aspect of 花痴.

 

...unless sosowenwen is absolutely wrong, but they had to get that aspect from somewhere, right?

[陳德聰]

With the recent kdrama about a certain 星星, the number of girls who 花痴明星 has likely increased, but I would call this "fangirling" moreso than anything using the word infatuation. Just for the record,

[skylee]

Agreed with #10, too. 

[dwq]

I first encountered this word in the context of 「花痴症」(Nymphomaniac), so it is a surprise to me when I learned here it can be used for the much 'lighter' fangirling.

曾讓黑人哭著逃出！　德國「花痴女」連做10次暴斃
http://www.ettoday.net/news/20121206/136108.htm

[陳德聰]

I burst out laughing when I saw it used to mean a person who is really really into flowers for the first time.