What Does a Red Eye Mean in Chinese?

A couple of days ago, one of my students who learn Chinese Skype with iChineseLearning came to me with a puzzled face. He asked me the meaning of “Red Eye” in Chinese. You may have never seen a person with red eyes. And we are not talking about a disease that makes a person’s eyes red. This may have confused many who are learning Chinese, so I feel it necessary to write this post.

The world has humans of different races. Some of them have blue eyes as in Europe, some brown eyes, some black eyes as in Asia. Then what does a Red Eye mean in Chinese? A “red eye” is called 眼红(yǎn hóng) in which 眼 means “eye” and 红 means “red”.

眼红 is kind of a Chinese slang, that is used to describe someone who is jealous of another person who is better off than he himself. For example: Michael is lazy and leads a poor life. Jack is hardworking and has a great fortune. So, Michael may envy of Jack, because Jack is so much better off than him. So, we can say Michael has a red eye! (A 眼红了。) Another example is: 他很有钱，大家都很眼红！(tā hěn yǒu qián, dàjiā dōu hěn yǎnhónɡ!) This sentence means “He is very rich and everyone is very jealous of him.”

As mentioned, 眼红 is a slang in Chinese, so it is most commonly used in conversational Chinese. Leave me a comment if you want to know the meaning of other Chinese words.