Dictionary

tofu dreg en · NOUN

Etymology

Calque of Chinese 豆腐渣 (dòufuzhā, “tofu dreg; okara”), dòufuzhā as in 豆腐渣工程 (dòufuzhā gōngchéng) and similar phrases. Coined by Tan Zuoren in 2008.

Meanings

1. (attributive, in-plural, often) A poorly constructed building in China, or the shoddy material(s) used to construct it.
   • Tan Zuoron, a writer who tried to document “shoddy tofu-dregs construction” that might have caused massive school-building collapses, was sentenced to prison. 2014, Yi Kang, Disaster Management in China in a Changing Era, Springer, →ISBN, page 56:
   • No one asks about the shoddy “tofu-dregs engineering”; instead, we blindly accuse “running teacher Fan.” Nationalism is only a fig leaf for the feeble-minded, a tricky maneuver that prevents everyone from seeing the complete picture. 2011, Ai Weiwei, Ai Weiwei's Blog: Writings, Interviews, and Digital Rants, 2006-2009, MIT Press, →ISBN, page 177:
   • ‘Tofu-dreg Projects’ during the Ming dynasty. 2016, S. Sun, “The Three Conditions for Behavior, and the Five Behavior Management Measures”, in Five Basic Institution Structures …:
   • The poor condition of tofu dregs schoolhouses was used to explain the high casualty rate, but the statistic did not fly. The ratio of young to old among the dead—roughly one to ten—ought to have been less stark. 2017, Paul Midler, What's Wrong with China, John Wiley & Sons, →ISBN:
   • Individual Chinese citizens explicitly criticized the Ministry of Railway, describing it with such disparaging terms as ‘asshole’ and ‘bastard,’ and described the high-speed train project as one of the ‘tofu-dreg projects (豆腐渣工程 in Mandarin),’ which referred to projects with poor [quality]. 2015, Y. Liu, “Tweeting, re-tweeting, and commenting: Microblogging and social movements in China”, in Asian Journal of Communication:
   • For example, the Kunming-Luquan highway in Kunming, Yunnan Province, had become a “tofu dreg project.” 2015, Rongji Zhu, Zhu Rongji on the Record: The Road to Reform: 1998-2003, Brookings Institution Press, →ISBN, page 98:
   • Between 2008 and 2009, he investigated student casualties due to the collapse of “tofu-dreg” (shoddy) school buildings in the aftermath of the Sichuan earthquake. A list of 5,385 names was collected, for which he was severely beaten. 2016, Jacques deLisle, Avery Goldstein, Guobin Yang, The Internet, Social Media, and a Changing China, University of Pennsylvania Press, →ISBN, page 36:
   • Corruption is not to be discussed, “tofu-dregs construction” [a metaphor for shoddy work, using flimsy materials] is off limits, unpleasant evidence is suppressed. In the name of “stability maintenance,” they threaten, detain, ... 2021, Ai Weiwei, 1000 Years of Joys and Sorrows: A Memoir, Crown
   • Tofu dregs, which crumble at the slightest touch, have become the go-to image for referring to building and infrastructure projects that use substandard materials and shoddy design to cut costs during construction. 2016, Han Han, The Problem with Me: And Other Essays About Making Trouble in China Today, Simon and Schuster, →ISBN, page 20:
   • In the 2008 Sichuan earthquake several thousand school buildings collapsed, killing thousands of children and bringing the world's attention to the shoddy “tofu-dregs” buildings and rampant corruption that had skimmed the public funds ... 2014, Catie Snow Bailard, Democracy's Double-Edged Sword: How Internet Use Changes Citizens' Views of Their Government, Johns Hopkins University Press+ORM, →ISBN:
   • […] teachers, teaching assistants, and school nurses would have died in the Sichuan earthquake in 2008 had the buildings not been made of tofu dregs. 2015, John C. Mutter, The Disaster Profiteers: How Natural Disasters Make the Rich Richer and the Poor Even Poorer, Macmillan, →ISBN, page 95:

Forms

Relateds

tofu dregs