sowerclub.com The second picture is garlic. From the pictures you can tell the point of this Xiehouyu: if a narcissus doesn’t blossom, its flat leaves and corm look like those of garlic.
food.39.net I read online a story about one year when Qianlong Emperor was on a tour around the south of the Changjiang River, he was impressed by an extensive green field of garlic. But the next year when he went there again, the garlic hadn’t gown up. To please the emperor, an official replaced narcissuses with garlic, whose leaves resembled those of the former when watched from a long distance away. The emperor was pleased and the official was promoted.
The story is said to be the origin of the latter part of the Xiehouyu--裝蒜(zhong suan4), pretend to be garlic.
When you know something but pretend that you don’t. This is 裝蒜. For example, you know that your girlfriend is eager to get married and is expecting you to pop the question. You just pretend that you know nothing about it and keep ignoring her suggestive remarks.
Besides being a condiment, garlic is considered a good sterilizer, which prevents and cures some infections. Some people dip garlic in water and gargle with it to prevent colds. We even have essence of garlic as health food.
In some courses, garlic plays not only as a condiment, but as a main ingredient. For example, when cooked with chicken as a coup (sometimes clans are added to it), it is a delicious course , 蒜頭雞(suan4 te2 ji), which will warm you up in winter.
When someone is doubtful about something without firm proof, or later is proved to be wrong, we’ll say he’s 多心(duo shin),which literally means “many hearts.” We have a Xiehouyu 大蒜發芽(da4 suan4 fa ya2) to express it. When garlic sprouts, it looks like it has many “hearts.”
Another garlic-related xiehouyu is大蒜剝皮,(da4 suan4 bo pi2) peeling garlic. When peeling a bunch of garlic, you got to 層層深入(ceng2 ceng2 shen ru4) , peel one layer after another, like a detective solving a case, or a scientist dipping into a fact.
Next year is the presidential election year. Whenever there’s an election in Taiwan, you’ll hear a lot of 凍蒜(dong4 suan4), which has nothing to do with garlic despite the word 蒜. It’s the south Min dialect meaning “elected.” You can guess what you probably will see in the candidates’ offices next year.
水仙不開花=水仙不开花
裝蒜=装蒜
蒜頭雞=蒜头鸡
大蒜發芽=大蒜发芽
大蒜剝皮=大蒜剥皮
層層深入=层层深入
凍蒜=冻蒜
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