Why eat bullshit? (joke)

In my previous writing 字感(zi4 gan3), I talked about how Chinese characters can be put vertically or horizontally. As a result, misunderstanding arises.

For example, one day a foreigner came to a diner in Taiwan and got terribly confused. “Why eat 牛大便(niu2 da4 bian4), bull’s dropping?” asked him on reading the menu on the wall.

In Taiwan’s diners the main courses are often shown on color strips of paper on the wall. This one goes as:

牛 大 便

肉 滷 當

麵 麵

The foreigner just read the menu from left to right as reading English, when it is actually arranged downward. If you start from left, the menu goes as 牛肉麵(niu2 rou4 mian4)，beef noodles, 大滷麵(da4 lu3 mian4)，dalu noodles, and便當(bian4 dang), bento, or a boxed meal.

Another characteristic of the Chinese characters is that some characters consist of more than one unit, which is a character itself. Misunderstanding might happen with loose scribbles that do not arrange the units properly. For example, a first grader with the name 朱月坡(zhu yue4 puo) is often mistaken as 朱肚皮(zhu du4 pi2) since he puts the parts of his last word 坡 too separately with the left part 土(tu3) combined with the middle word 月, which turns to 肚. As a result, his name sounds like “pig’s belly.”

Tons of such examples can be given. 關金鵲(guan jin que4), a name after some bird, turns to be 關錯鳥(guan cuo4 niao3), literally meaning shutting in the wrong bird. It sounds funnier if you know that “bird” 鳥is also a euphemism for man’s genital.

Probably this is why we always have squares for the beginners to practice writing the characters. Take a look at those beginners’ writing without any lines or squares to confine the characters, you might be amused.

牛肉麵=牛肉面

大滷麵=大卤面

便當=便当

關金鵲=关金鹊

關錯鳥=关错鸟