Updated July 2026
What does 白人饭 mean?
白人饭 (bái rén fàn) means a sad desk lunch in everyday Chinese slang. A very plain, minimal, cold meal — raw carrots, plain bread, undressed salad. Used as self-mockery about one's own sad lunch. Literally, it means "white-people food".
Hear it explained
A 30-second take on 白人饭 — what it means, where it came from, and how to use it.
白人饭, bái rén fàn. A raw carrot. Two slices of bread. Lettuce with nothing on it. 今天中午白人饭，一根黄瓜加两片面包. It is a stereotype, and Chinese office workers mostly aim it at themselves, mourning their own sad cold desk lunch. Not a claim about how anyone actually eats.
Example
今天中午白人饭，一根黄瓜加两片面包。
Jīntiān zhōngwǔ bái rén fàn, yì gēn huángguā jiā liǎng piàn miànbāo.
Sad desk lunch today — one cucumber and two slices of bread.
Where 白人饭 comes from
A joke aimed inward: Chinese office workers photograph their own bleak cold lunch and label it 白人饭, contrasting it with the effort a proper Chinese meal takes. Read it as self-mockery about a joyless desk lunch, not as a claim about how anyone actually eats.
Related slang
FAQ
Free account
Learn slang you can actually hear
A dictionary entry tells you what it means — the episodes let you hear how people say it. A free account keeps every word you save together with the audio it came from, at a level you understand.
- Hear slang in natural audio
- Keep vocab and transcript progress
- Continue at your level