Obsessive with names and words (II) (homophone)

Besides hustling around the kitchen, traditionally the Chinese people would be busy attaching 春聯(chun lian2) around their houses in the end of every year. 春聯 is red paper with lucky words written by brush pen on them. On the gate it’s usually a rhymed line made up of two sentences, each with 7 words, which are stuck down on the two sides of the door. Above the door is a short phrase of 4 words attached across. The three make a whole set.

And on the windows we attach some lucky words such as 春(chun), spring、福(fu2) blessing、壽(shou4), longevity . . . etc. 春 and福 sometimes are put upside down because in Chinese the word upside down 倒(dao4 or dao3) sounds the same as 到(dao4), which means arrive. As a result, the upside down 春 means 春到(chun dao4), the spring has come. On the rice jar, you might see the word 滿(man3), which means full. It was the general wish for people at the age of poverty not to starve. And even at the pigpen or barn where people keep their livestock, you will see 六畜興旺(liu4 chu4 xing wang4), fast breed for the livestock.

You see my point now? Somehow we are like wizards, who keep casting spells around ourselves in the hope that life will go the way we wish because we’ve put our wishes in words.

According to the statistics, last year in Taiwan, over 12 thousand people changed their names. Most of them were willing to take the inconveniences and did so in the hope to change their luck 改運(gqi3 yun4) because as I’m telling you, we are obsessive with names and think we are what we are called.

Many parents go to fortune tellers to name their babies because you can’t be too careful about the name of your newborn baby. Not only does it carry the good wishes from the parents, but it has a fatal influence on his/her life, from 五行(yu3 xing2) (the five elements) to the number of strokes, which involve a lot of mysteries that it takes an expert to do it. That’s why sometimes we’ll meet people with names that we don’t know how to pronounce or what they mean. Eight out of ten they’re from some fortune-teller’s strange dictionary.

With the entrance exam for colleges around the corner, one of my colleagues told me he had to get a train ticket from 追分(zhui fen)to 成功(cheng2 gong) for her daughter as a gift to her friend, who’s an examinee. Another typical example. 追分and 成功 are names of two places as well as train stations. Combined together it means to pursue score and succeed. Thus the ticket becomes a lucky symbol for examinees of any exams. Some people also use it in pursuit of marriage because 分(fen) also sounds like 婚(hun), meaning marriage as in 婚姻(hun yin)

It could be dated back to year 2000, when a train ticket of 永保安康(yong3 bao3 an kang) showed up in an automobile commercial. Combine the names of the two places, 永康(yong3 kang) and 保安(bao3 an), and you get the term 永保安康, which means safe and health forever. Some smart people then started to notice追分成功, which was a sensational craze. It is said back then in one month, about 3 million of追分成功 tickets were sold! (I'm not sure if the number is exaggerated. But for your information, the population of Taiwan is around 23 million.)

I’d better stop here for I have so much to do. I have to think about what pseudonym I should take to get me famed and rich. Also, I’d better get a good 春聯 for my computer. Perhaps a 永保安康 ticket too!

春聯=春联 (Simplified)

壽=寿

滿=满

六畜興旺=六畜兴旺

改運=改运

五行: the five elements, including gold, wood, water, fire and earth