Foreigners in China naturally get a lot of kind compliments or treatment. Sometimes the compliment is merely kind, and a person could reply with 哪里 or 别客气, or 不好意思了.
But sometimes gesture is so overwhelming that you really want to say the person need not have done it -- but at the same time show that you appreciate it. So I learned the phrase 折杀 which might be good for those times.
But when I look for it on-line I find a lot of sites explaining it and very few using it. So I wonder if people do use it today.
Baidu calls it 民间用语：虚拟抬高别人生活状态的贬义用词。 I am not sure what they mean by 贬义. It is really insulting? Or is it just a little funny?
And I am not sure what they mean by 民间用语. Does it just mean the phrase is colloquial? Or does it mean the phrase is a bit quaint or old-fashioned?
