Riddles for the Lantern Festival (Xiehouyu)

Officially Chinese New Year ends tomorrow on the Lantern Festival, the fifteenth day of the first month on lunar calendar. Traditionally people would have a lantern show, a showcase for the delicate and advanced craftsmanship. Besides watching the lanterns, there would to be a riddle game, which was called 燈謎(deng mi2), Riddles on the lanterns. It was called so because the riddles were written on paper and attached to the lanterns, 花燈(hua deng) The activity of solving the riddles was called 打燈謎(da3 deng mi2) or 猜燈謎(cai deng mi2)

There are rules for making riddles. They are statements of double or veiled meanings, sometimes in poetic form. According to Wikipedia,

“. . . Riddles are of two types: enigmas, which are problems generally expressed in metaphorical or allegorical language that require ingenuity and careful thinking for their solution, and conundrums, which are questions relying for their effects on punning in either the question or the answer.”

Since it’s Lantern Festival tomorrow, I’d like to give you some riddles to solve. Unlike the traditional riddles, mine are “version for foreigners.”

I’ll divide them into two parts. The first part for the characters and the second, Xiehouyu 歇後語 And I’ll give you the answers in my next article.

Part I: Each of the following questions has a key of a Chinese  character.

1. Woman.

2. Three women.

3. Fifteen persons

4. Two woods

5. Three woods.

6. A rabbit without its tail.

7. A king gets a tail.

8. Two worms under the spring.

9. A bird by the river.

10. It keeps raining in the spring and the widow is alone at home.

 (Hint: Start with the word spring 春(chun) Delete parts of it according to the riddle and you get a simple word.)

Part II: Guess the latter part of the following Xiehouyu.

1.     寡婦死了兒子(gua3 fu4 si3 le er2 zi3) A widow is bereaved of her son.

2.     廁所裡的石頭( ce4 suo3 li3 de shi2 tou2)A stone in the toilet.

3.     豬八戒照鏡子(zhu ba jie4 zhao4 jing zi3)  Zhu ba jie looks into the mirror. (This one I’ve mentioned in my previous writing with the same title.)

4. 大姑娘上花轎(da4 gu niang2 shang4 hua jiao4) A young lad gets on 花轎, a wheelless man-power transport for the bride.

5. 外甥打燈籠(wai4 sheng da3 deng long2)  A nephew handles a lantern.

燈謎=灯谜

歇後語=歇后语

寡婦死了兒子=寡妇死了儿子

廁所裡的石頭=厕所里的石头

豬八戒照鏡子=猪八戒照镜子

大姑娘上花轎=大姑娘上花轿

外甥打燈籠=外甥打灯笼