干净

[bossidy]

Here's a sentence from a Chinese Breeze story:

 

               可是，对夏雨这样从里到外都那么干净的女孩，不说真话……黄小明想都不能想。

 

I'm assuming that 那么干净 here means something like innocent, virtuous, etc., but I've never seen 干净 used this way before. Is it common?

[Woodford]

As someone who got started by reading tons of Chinese Breeze readers, this phrase looks really, really familiar to me.   I can't remember what book it's from, though! 

Yeah, you're correct! That word is being used more metaphorically here, to talk about purity/innocence. You'll find that's the case with a lot of Chinese words--they're used metaphorically very, very often.

[Xiaowang]

Funny, just reading this very book and also noticed this particular sentence. It’s ‘If I didn’t have you’.

[bossidy]

So I'm wondering if Chinese people use "干净" this way in everyday conversation.