Yue guang zu (月光族) “moonlight clan” are not “moonlighters” in the English sense, rather it refers to the type of people who spend all their earnings each month. The two characters yue (月) and guɑng (光) in the phrase have nothing to do with the moon or light but mean yue yue huɑ guɑng (月月花光) “monthly income completely gone”; the character zu (族) stands for a large group of people. Members of the moonlight clan are mostly young men and women who have just entered employment.
They do not usually earn very much and have not developed a habit of saving money, so all their money is used up at the end of each month. A male belonging to the moonlight clan is called Mr. Moonlight and a female is called Miss Moonlight.
Example
Mr. Li graduated from a fairly well-known university in Beijing and has been working in a company for two years with a monthly income of 3500 yuan. Mr. Li uses this money to pay the rent, utility bills, dine out, buy clothes and so on. More often than not, his purse becomes empty by the end of the month. As a result he sometimes has to borrow money from his parents. So, although he has been working for two years, Mr. Li has hardly any savings.
