What does vai chuong mean in Vietnamese slang?

Question

is "Vãi chưởng" a vulgar and offensive phrase in Vietnamese slang?

Answer 1

In my opinion, you shouldn't use the words for words translation for this slang. Basically, "Vãi" here is quite similar to the slang "freaking".

"Vãi chưởng" is an old slang few years ago, used to be popular for young people, meanings "freaking hell".
However, youngsters don't seem to use that much nowadays. Instead, it's minimized to become "Adjective + Vãi" to express something in a supprising way, sth extreme, or to stress the meaning of an adjective, or just a way of saying makes the person feel cool by saying it like "sick, dope, lit, etc". For example:
If you ate something and you feel really like it, you could say "Ngon vãi" (Meanings the food is freaking/ extremely/absolutely/really delicious).
If you saw a pretty girl, you could compliment by using this slang "Xinh vãi" (Meanings Yo she's so freaking pretty, but recommend to use with close friends only, some people will consider it is impolite to say this to a girl you dont know)
Etc, many other adjectives you can combine with this slang just similar to "freaking", just different order position of the adjective (Freaking + adj but with "Vãi" it would be Adj+ Vãi )

Answer 2

“Vãi” means something is dropped out. It is usually used for small things with large quantity like rice or bean…

“Chưởng” is a skill in martial art

In fact, the structure “vãi + st” is used to express your surprise, so there are a lot of phrase vãi chưởng, vãi linh hồn, vãi + four-letter words. Like you are grasping something, then you hear a surprising news or realise something interesting and drop it.

In conclusion,

“vãi chưởng”

= “Oh my god!” (when hear a surprising news)

= “so”, “very”, “extremely” (describe something)

Answer 3

No, it's not a vulgar and offensive phrase.

Vãi = something that is full and dropped out of bag/cup/glass.

Chưởng = an act in Kungfu that using hand(to push/punch - not very exactly but it is close to).

Of course,in formal,match them together make it become an unclearly phrase/no meaning. But in slang,that mean: something out of expected.