China girl

Noun

China girl (countable and uncountable, plural China girls)

1. (US) A moving or still image of a woman or mannequin, used by film processing technicians to calibrate colour balance and exposure of skin tones in reproduction.
   • A final group of Hollywood’s usually invisible working class is introduced in Fisher’s comments about the use of the China Girl, the images of women dressed in multicolored clothes that are often seen on heads and tails of reels of film. The China Girl’s function is to act as a color-control...1993, Scott MacDonald, Avant-Garde Film: Motion Studies, page 60
   • It is really amazing how easily colorists can screw up the look of your film with a few misconceptions about proper skin tones and by using the dreaded china girl. (A china girl is a pasty white specimen of a girl that a colorist uses as a reference when balancing the colors on your film.)2000, Bret Stern, How to Shoot a Feature Film for Under $10,000^(https://openlibrary.org/books/OL7274698M/How_to_Shoot_a_Feature_Film_for_Under_10_000_(And_Not_Go_to_Jail)), page 172
2. (slang, street name) The opioid drug fentanyl.
3. Name given to cultivars of various tree, shrub and plant species, including dogwood, holly, orchids, etc.
4. (attributive) Straight, glossy, cut short, with a fringe / bangs.
   • Her hair was black and straight, cut in a demure China girl cut that didn’t quite match her aggressive looks.1987, Paul Allman, chapter 4, in No Pain, No Gain, page 24
   • […] when she was on her own she had to remove her contacts and don the chestnut brown ‘China Girl’ wig that was the centrepiece of her daily disguise.2002, James Flint, 52 Ways to Magic America, page 223
5. Any of various cocktails.
6. (dated, ethnic, offensive, slur) A young woman of Chinese (or other East Asian) descent.
   • Coordinate term: Chinaman