Chinese internet users call themselves leeks because leeks grow back after being cut, and so do naive investors.
In Chinese, jiucai (韭菜) is the word for garlic chives, a vegetable prized for a specific agricultural quality: when the leaves are cut above ground, they grow back quickly, ready to be harvested again.1 On China’s internet, the word became slang for people who are repeatedly exploited, particularly small-scale retail investors in the stock market.
The metaphor originated in Chinese financial forums, where the phrase ge jiucai, cutting leeks, described how institutional investors profited at the expense of inexperienced retail traders. When one batch of naive investors lost their money and exited the market, a new batch would sprout up to replace them.2
By the late 2010s, the word had expanded far beyond finance. Middle-class Chinese consumers began calling themselves leeks to express their sense of being harvested by corporations, the government, and the economy at large. Phrases like "the government is going to harvest the leeks again" became common on social media platforms.3
When state media editorials in 2018 pushed for penalties against families with fewer than two children, social media users joked that "the country is desperate for more leeks to be harvested."4 A vegetable that grows back after every cut had become the self-image of an entire generation of Chinese workers and consumers who felt the system was designed to extract value from them in perpetuity.