穿着睡衣宅在家里的一天

What does “宅 (zhái)” mean in Chinese slang?

宅 (zhái) originally just meant “residence” or “house.” Its homebody slang sense is generally linked to Japanese otaku (お宅) culture and spread through Chinese — notably via Taiwan — in the 2000s, becoming slang for someone who stays in all day, and then a verb meaning to do exactly that. Today you can say 我要宅在家里 (I’m going to stay home), or call yourself 很宅 (very homebody). It carries a slightly self-deprecating but affectionate tone rather than a judgement.

The vlogger in the clip spends a whole day in pyjamas, spelling out the mindset: 我并不是一个很宅的人，但是有的时候我就是想宅 — “I’m not really a homebody, but sometimes I just want to zhai.” That slippage between adjective and verb is the key to the word: 宅男 (zhái nán) is a male homebody, 宅女 (zhái nǚ) is a female homebody, and 宅文化 (zhái wénhuà) is the whole stay-in subculture that streaming services and food delivery have supercharged.