Macking In Taipei

What does 'macking' mean?

Because it is slang, it meaning is not fixed in the Oxford English Dictionary or the American Heritage Dictionary.  Here are a few examples:

1. William Safire (NYT magazine, June 2000)  "Only yesterday," notes the copywriter for the Farrar, Straus & Giroux fall catalog, "boys and girls spoke of embracing and kissing (necking) as getting to first base. Second base was deep kissing, plus groping and fondling this and that." No longer; first base is today deep kissing, also known as tonsil hockey. The writer then speeds up to date in orally touching second and rounding third base, which is now "going all the way," and slides home with a surprise twist of the old sex-as-baseball metaphor: "Home plate is being introduced by name."  Tonsil hockey, as used at Farrar, Straus & Giroux to mean "deep kissing," is at least a decade old, having replaced tonsil boxing. A more recent variation is tongue sushi, which shows some metaphoric imagination: the Japanese sushi -- cold rice rolled up with bits of raw fish and vegetables -- is evoked to describe the mutual rolling-up of teenage linguae engaged in lubricious osculation.  Tonsil hockey goalies have, in a spasm of good taste, rejected the phrase, popular in the 80's, "to suck face." That undeniably vivid but odious locution seems to have been replaced in some localities with the almost euphemistic mess around. Its variants include mashing, macking (from smack, the sound of a kiss) and mugging , the senses of which run the semantic gamut from "flirting" to "foreplay with no intention of intercourse." Those familiar with Old Slang would call it "taking a long lead off first base." 

2.  Word Ideas  Macking: Searching for a date.

3.  Slang City  Mack daddy (noun phrase)  1. A pimp (male manager of prostitutes)  2. A man with many girlfriends

4. The Mavens' Word of The Day  

Mack has only been used by college kids to mean 'hit on' or 'kiss' for the last fifteen years or so, but the verb is a lot older than that.

The word mack goes all the way back to the Dutch word makelaar for 'a broker', and comes to us through the French maquereau for 'a pimp'. The word is seen in English as early as the 15th century: "Nighe his house dwellyed a maquerel or bawd" (Caxton, Cato Magnus, 1483). This use continued into the 18th century.

In the 19th century, the form mack appears with the meaning of 'a pimp' or 'to pimp', but the form did not become common until the 20th century: "Your broad...starts signifying about your not having a license to mack" (Wepman, The Life, 1964). During this period, the first references to mack daddies, or 'successful pimps', are found in African-American rhymed recitations.

Also during the 1960s, mack developed a second meaning of 'the sweet talk a pimp uses with prositutes', as in: "The pimp...by his lively and persuasive rapping ("macking" is also used in this context) has acquired a stable of girls" (Trans-action VI, 1969).

Later, mack was extended to refer to any flirtatious talk with someone of the opposite sex: "I don't want you women to be macking with the brothers if they ain't tending to business" (Wolfe, Radical Chic, 1970). While this sense of mack was originally African-American slang, it was introduced to the mainstream in the 1980s and 1990s through rap music: "...think they be mackin' but they actin'/ Who they attractin' with that line?" (Notorious B.I.G., Big Poppa, 1995).

Since the mid 1990s, mack has been primarily college slang, used by teens and twenty-somethings to talk about flirting or kissing. It is often found in the construction mack on, probably by analogy with the phrase "hit on." Mack can still be used as a noun to refer to someone who is good at "hooking up" with members of the opposite sex, probably through truncation of mack daddy, which, these days, refers more often to smooth-talking teenage boys than it does to pimps. 

5. The Boob Touch: or How to Hyper Stimulate Her While You Talk  You are both standing in a club or bar, you have already approached her, sparked a conversation, and while talking (whispering) to her, you hold your drink with both hands in front of your chest and stand very close to her. This is a standard "I'm just socializing" position.  By having your gin and tonic (or what have you) right in front of your chest, you try to ever so slightly touch her boobs (not the nipples just yet) while you are whispering to her. Don't bring attention to it, it is happening merely as an unintentional accident: you are trying to make sure she hears what you are saying by talking to her in her ear, but because you have to reach over to her ear, your knuckles are accidentally brushing against her boobs and nipples.  Proceed to repeat this throughout your conversation, quickly brushing against her nipples. Again, if she keeps making conversation it means she is enjoying it (green light). Sometimes you will notice that they just start asking the most bland and pathetic questions, meaning, "don't stop cause I love it".  Keep this up for as long as you feel like it. We do recommend changing gears while they are still wet, so within twenty minutes of talking via the "boob touch" method, you can take it to the next level (continued in the "Let's go somewhere" chapter).

Yes, but so what?  Maybe you knew all that already.  Or if you didn't know before, you are not sure that you are a better person for having just read about macking for the first time.

But on January 24, 2006, the front page news in Apple Daily (Taiwan) is about 'Macking in Taipei.'

This is because the City of Taipei Department of Information had an English-language page that teaches foreigners how to go about macking in Taipei.  The Apple Daily reporter had done the homework, and then saved the calling to the Department of Information for the last step.  Within hours, that page was yanked from the website.  The following is the Google cache:

Apple Daily went through the usual interviews of government officials, legislators, local citizens and foreign visitors.  All the responses are predictable, so there is no need to regurgitate all that.  But Apple Daily carried a related story about a piece of history in Japan-Taiwan relationships.  

Four years ago, there was an erotic guide (極樂台灣) to Taiwan published for Japanese sex tourists.  Taipei was characterized as a city in which sex could be bought anytime anywhere (春城無處不飛花).  This caused Taipei mayor Ma Ying-jeou that to promise that he will arrest every single Japanese sex tourist.  He also recommended the central government to stamp 'prostitute patron' into the passports of all arrested sex tourists.  That was all bluster, of course, but Ma did have a very practical piece of action -- he mobilized the Taipei City police to sweep through all the locations listed in the guide!