jiang-hu

Noun The pinyin spelling of Chinese word “江湖” （jiāng hú）. Literally translates as “Rivers and lakes”.

It means the cruel, ruthless real world or society that you need to struggle to survive. It is often used in Wuxia novels(martial art stories) in which “Jiang-hu” equals to “the whole world that concerned”.

“Jiang-hu” is the whole world minus the tower of ivory. If you are a swardsman, a police, a hobo, a sweat labor works far from home, a doctor secretly works for mafia, an assassin, a prostitute, a thug... or even a common person who have

any kind of relation with those people or there affairs, you are in Jiang-hu.

We alse call any world runs the law of jungle a “Jiang-hu”.

人在江湖，身不由己
In the Jiang-hu, your path is not you to choose.

人在江湖飘，哪能不挨刀？
Once get in Jiang-hu, hard not to get hurt.

江湖骗局
Jiang-hu scam

相濡以沫，不如相忘于江湖
——庄子

I’d rather fishes forget each other in rivers and lakes than quench each other with saliva on dried land.
-Zhuang zi