Strategies for learning Chinese characters: 02 (蓬门荜户 vs 筚路蓝缕)

 

Another set of lookalikes in the WeChat Chinese crossword puzzle game:  

荜 bì in 蓬门荜户 

and 

筚 bì in 筚路蓝缕  

(1) 蓬门荜户

péng mén bì hù  

"thatch door bramble door"

(from googling: one version) 形容居住的条件非常简陋、生活困苦。

(google translate) Quote It describes living conditions as extremely simple and a life of hardship. Unquote

(from googling: another version) 是一个描述贫寒简陋居所的四字成语，由“蓬门” (用蓬草做的门)和“荜户” (用荆条、竹枝等编的门)组成，整体比喻穷苦人家简陋的房屋，强调生活清贫，常常也用来指代出身寒微的家庭，带有感叹社会不公或赞扬寒门志士的意味。

(google translate) Quote "Pengmen bì hù" is a four-character idiom describing a poor and simple dwelling. It is composed of "pengmen" (a door made of thatch) and "bì hù" (a door woven from brambles, bamboo branches, etc.). Together, it is a metaphor for the simple house of a poor family, emphasizing a life of poverty. It is often used to refer to families of humble origins, and carries the connotation of lamenting social injustice or praising those who have made a name for themselves despite their humble background. Unquote

(2) 筚路蓝缕

bì lù lán lǚ

"bamboo-fence road blue rags" 

(from googling) 原意是穿着破旧的衣服，驾着简陋的柴车去开辟山林。现在常用来形容创业的艰辛，或形容在困境中开始某项事业非常艰难。这是一个褒义词，用于赞扬前人创业的艰苦卓绝。

(google translate) Quote Originally, it meant wearing tattered clothes and driving a simple cart to clear out forests. Now, it's often used to describe the hardships of starting a business, or the great difficulty of starting something under difficult circumstances. It's a positive term used to praise the arduous and extraordinary efforts of those who started businesses. Unquote

    The 荜 bì in 蓬门荜户 is written with grass radical, for anything related to plants, not just grass, but not woody plants like trees.

    It means "bean" but has been translated as "bramble" as well.

    The 筚 bì (bamboo radical) in 筚路蓝缕 is wicker or bamboo fence.

    In the Chinese crossword puzzle game, the two phrases will appear with one character missing:  蓬门_户 (for 蓬门荜户) and _路蓝缕 (for 筚路蓝缕).  Don't forget there's the element of the clock ticking in the case of the game.

    As they both sound exactly the same, I can't use the pronunciation to help me, although admittedly I can also use the mnemonic of calling them (out loud) 荜户 bì hù and 筚路 bì lù, except that hù and lù sound too similar, which can be confusing.

    I chose the mnemonic "bamboo road" for the 筚路 bì lù in 筚路蓝缕 because 筚 bì is the only bamboo radical character, so it'll stand out more (for me).  (The others are all grass radical: 蓬 and 荜 in 蓬门荜户, 蓝 in 筚路蓝缕.)

    Again, I say it out loud as soon as the phrase pops up:  "bamboo road" when I see _路蓝缕, therefore the bamboo radical version 筚, not the grass radical version 荜.

The Chinese love of word play: 02 (善解人意 shàn jiě rén yì)

 

I’ve been playing a mainland Chinese crossword puzzle game based on proverbs, in this case all four-character ones.  (Some Chinese proverbs can be longer.)

    It’s on WeChat, so has loads of players (and not just in mainland China, I think), a lot of whom have chosen to use fictitious tags which are obviously not names.

    One of them is a four-character one itself, thus mimicking the content of the game, but is a naughty word play which appeals to my wicked / perverse sense of humour.

    There's a common expression: 

善解人意

shàn jiě rén yì

“good-at understand[ing] people[’s] desires / wishes / meaning”

    The breakdown of the component parts of 解 jiě is:

角 jiǎo / horn

刀 dāo / knife

牛 niú / cattle* 

(*or any name under the cattle family: cow, bull, ox, bullock, buffalo)

    Taking a knife to the horn of a cow is perhaps for untying / undoing a knot that the cow’s horn has got caught up in.

    The translation for 解 can be:

• solve/unravel something (a puzzle or a mystery), 
• untie/undo a knot (which is similar to solving a puzzle or conundrum), 
• unravel a piece of knitwear (the knitting coming apart), 
• and therefore also “understand” as a cognate.

    I chanced upon the tag that one of the players of the Chinese crossword puzzle game has chosen for himself (has to be a bloke):

擅解人衣

shàn jiě rén yī

“good-at undoing people[’s] clothes”

    Another meaning of 擅 shàn is “do something on one’s own authority”, so there’s yet another level of word play here in his name tag of 擅解人衣:  that whoever’s-referred-to undoes people’s clothes on his own authority (i.e., not necessarily with consent).

    Brilliant.  Hahahaha.  Love his sense of humour.  Very clever word play too.

Being spied on

 

After the first popping up in the Chinese crossword puzzle game of a saying used in my lesson with the Shanghai-based student, two more sayings I’d fed the student in two subsequent lessons did the same thing.  They were not very common ones either, so it wouldn’t be a coincidence.

    An old friend has just told me that someone he knows had a private conversation with his wife (wife of the person my old friend knows) over dinner, away from all computers, about buying something.  Up popped that item later on the telly, so Alexa was listening.

    This reminds me of a joke in a Taiwanese magazine in the 80s that I was dipping into for teaching and exam-question material.

    The joke was set in the USSR.  A man turned on the TV.  Being aired was a political broadcast, so he switched to another channel.  Same thing, so he moved to a third channel.  The political broadcast again, so he changed to a fourth.  A big burly man appeared on the screen and said, “If you do that again, we’ll send you to the Gulag [labour camp].”