Thousand-year egg, 壞蛋? (Food)

On Travel and Living Channel, there’s a program, Bizarre Food. I wonder if you’ve ever seen the stout host swallowing those bizarre food such as fried bugs or wriggling worms. What impresses me most is those which he does not dare to eat.

One is stinky tofu 臭豆腐(chou4 dou4 fu3) he refused to eat in Shun-Keng, Taiwan. I think he chickened out probably because he had seen the raw tofus that were kept in the “stinky water,” which gave off a strong smell of rotten food and was filled with greenish mold. Another is 皮蛋(pi4 dan4), Century egg or thousand-year egg in Hongkong. He was scared by the dark-greenish egg that seemed nothing like a regular one.

Thousand-year eggs are mostly duck eggs that have been preserved in a mixture of clay, lime, ash, and some alkaline chemicals for several weeks or months. The chemical change contributes to the “abnormality” of their looks.

When you first see a皮蛋, you might think it is rotten. But in our daily language, 壞蛋(huai4 dan4), literally meaning a rotten egg, is used to refer to the villains, like the wolf in Little Red Riding Hood. And it’s only one of the abundant “egg phrases” in our life.

And for a bastard, it’s 混蛋(hun4 dan4), a mixed egg, or 渾蛋(hun2 dan4). For a dummy, it would be 笨蛋(ben4 dan4). Like the slogan used in 1992 Clinton’s presidential campaign, “It’s the economy, stupid,” we translated the “stupid” as笨蛋. And for the silly, it would be 傻蛋(sha3 dan4) or 蠢蛋(chun3 dan4).

Another phrase mostly used to curse someone would be 王八蛋(wang2 ba dan4). 王八is a nickname for the turtle, so the phrase means the turtle’s egg. But why the turtle’s egg? Or does it mean something else?

It is said that in ancient China, there was a thief surnamed 王(wang2). People called him 王八 because he was the eighth son of the family. Since 王sounds similar to 忘(wang4), to forget. People used the nickname to imply that he had forgotten the eighth virtue of the eight virtues 八德(ba de2) , which is 恥(chi3) shame. Namely, a 忘八 would be a shameless person. This is one of the possible origins of the term.

In ancient China, people used turtle shells to divine 占卜(zhan bu3). The shell was heated until some cracks appeared. The patterns of the cracks were used to foretell the future. In the book 史記(shi3 ji4), Records of the Grand Historian, there is a record about eight kinds of divine turtles, which some people say might be related to the term 王八. The eighth turtle was 王龜(wang2 gui), the emperor’s turtle, thus came the term王八.

When a kid is monkeying around and causing troubles, we may call his behavior as 搗蛋(dao3 dan4), or use the phrase 調皮搗蛋(tiao3 pi2 dao3 dan4) to describe him. As a result, a naughty boy could be nicknamed皮蛋as a simplified term of調皮搗蛋.

For Chinese people, the egg is not only a food. It comes in various forms to add colors to our daily language. For those who dare not try stinky tofu or thousand-year egg, I think you might as well give it a shot. You may fall for them and realize what it means when we say do not judge a book by its cover.

壞蛋=坏蛋

渾蛋=浑蛋

王龜=王龟

調皮搗蛋=调皮捣蛋