江湖 (jiāng hú) — Rivers and lakes — the shadowy w...
Literally rivers and lakes — the shadowy world of martial artists, outlaws, and wanderers in wuxia fiction. Online, used metaphorically for any competitive social world with unspoken rules: the office, the internet, the dating scene.
Example Usage
在这个公司，真是一个江湖，人心难测。
This company is a real jianghu — people's hearts are hard to read.
Cultural Context
江湖 appears in virtually every Jin Yong and Gu Long wuxia novel and film. Today it describes any complex social ecosystem with its own power dynamics and unspoken rules.
Category: internet-culture