割韭菜
gē jiǔ cài
Harvesting leeks — scamming or exploiting consumers/investors, especially through overpriced products or bad investments.
Origin
Leeks grow back after being cut, symbolizing how consumers/investors keep coming back to be exploited again.
Examples
That crypto project is just 割韭菜.
别被割韭菜了。(Don't get scammed.)
Related terms
天台见
tiān tái jiàn
"See you on the roof" — gallows humor for having lost catastrophic money, usually on football bets or the stock market. The unspoken second half is that the rooftop is where you'd go to jump, so the phrase means roughly "I'm ruined" said with a laugh.
关灯吃面
guān dēng chī miàn
"Eating noodles with the lights off" — the standard way to say you took a bad loss in the market. Broader than a stock term now: any quiet, undramatic private misery.
草台班子
cǎo tái bān zi
Literally a 'straw-stage troupe' — any operation that looks official but is actually disorganized, unprofessional, and improvised; the viral extended form 'the whole world is one giant clown show' applies that to everything.
内卷
nèi juǎn
Involution — excessive, often pointless competition where everyone works harder but nobody gains more.