經銷合約解約的「分手費」英文叫 severance fee， 雇傭關係遣散員工的「分手費」稱 severance pay，夫妻離異的「分手費」，一般叫做 alimony (贍養費) ，男女朋友談判分手條件的「分手費」可說 breakup fee。
以China in bite-sized portions為口號，專門以兩三分鐘英文短文 (2 min read/ 3 min read) 報導中國訊息的網站Shanghaiist.com，就曾刊載一則新聞：一個富二代男子與女朋友談分手，女方要求500萬人民幣，約在酒吧交錢。男方帶來一只裝滿現鈔手提箱，說裡面是200萬，丟下就走，女方聽說只有200萬，也掉頭走人。裝滿現鈔的手提箱後來送警處理。請看底下：
Guy gives girlfriend 2 million yuan ‘breakup fee.’ She says it’s not enough, leaves it at some bar.
The young woman had asked for 5 or 10 million yuan, but her ex-boyfriend turned out to be real cheapskate
Shanghaiist.com
May 10, 2018 · 3 min read
Breaking up is hard to do. Particularly when there is money involved.
As they were closing up shop early on Monday morning, workers at a bar in the city of Hangzhou discovered a rather heavy suitcase that had apparently been forgotten by a patron. While the suitcase was being carried to a storage area for lost items, it was accidentally dropped and its latches popped open, employees claimed.
Inside, they could now see what made the case so heavy — bundles and bundles of 100-yuan notes.
Afterward, the bar’s manager called the police who picked up the suitcase and counted its contents, finding that it contained a whopping 2 million yuan ($314,000) in cash — which would appear to be about as much Chinese money as you can feasibly stuff inside a single suitcase.
According to Xinhua, as officers deliberated about what should be done, the suitcase’s owner arrived at the police station. Much to their surprise, he was a young man, in his twenties, who was accompanied by a young woman, also in her twenties, and bar staff.
To confirm that he was, in fact, the owner of the suitcase, police asked the man how much cash was stuffed inside. He answered, matter-of-factly, 2 million yuan.
When asked why he had been carrying around so much cash, the man said that the money was a “breakup fee” for his ex-girlfriend. While she had asked for 5 million yuan ($787,000), he had shown up at the bar, told her that he had only brought 2 million yuan, and departed, leaving the suitcase behind, he explained.
The woman confirmed the man’s story, saying: “He said he would only give me 2 million yuan. I didn’t want it, so I left.”
After leaving the bar, the woman called her ex-boyfriend to tell him that she hadn’t taken the money and that he should go back to pick it up. When the man arrived back at the bar, staff there informed him that the suitcase had been handed over to the police. He then headed to the station to retrieve it.
As you might expect, the police officers were more than a little flabbergasted by this incredible story and tried to remind the man not to be so careless with such an extremely large sum of money.
“Is 2 million yuan a lot? I just wanted to give it to my girlfriend to break up with her, that’s all,” the man responded.
Reportedly, the young man is a “fù’èrdài” — a term that literally means “rich second generation” — coming from an extremely wealthy family working in China’s IT sector.
The woman’s background is not known, but other reports claim that she actually asked for 10 million yuan ($1.57 million) from her boyfriend as a “breakup fee.” Just think of all the baozi she could buy with that kind of cash!
細讀英文報導你會發現文章的標題故意聳人聽聞，女方要求 500萬人民幣 (she had asked for 5 million yuan)，標題卻加油添醋，寫成 The young woman had asked for 5 or 10 million yuan！