Chinese Culture Revolves Around Stupid Puns
I was thinking recently about how Chinese culture kind of revolves around stupid puns[1].
Why can't you gift someone clocks or cups? Because puns. "Gifting clocks" (送钟 song4 zhong1) sounds identical to "hosting a funeral"(送终 song4 zhong1). By extension, you can't gift anything that lets you read the time either, like watches. "Cups" (杯具 bei1 ju4) sounds identical to "tragedy" (悲剧 bei1 ju4) so yeah, cups are also bad.
What's really funny to me personally, after I learned it, is how you can't cut your hair in January[2] because your uncle would die.
This is long-winded. Bear with me.
So in the Qing dynasty men had to do their hair into a silly little braid, which was stupid. Imagine being a guy and being legally obliged to braid your hair. I'd just unalive myself. Anyways, the hairstyle also entailed shaving the top of your head bald. And if you don't shave it every once in a while your hair would grow back (surprise) and you'd get in jail or something.
Now obviously people hated this, not only because it was stupid but also in Confucian culture you're not supposed to cut your hair because it came from your parents[3]. So there birthed a tradition that people won't shave their hair in January, because "nostalgia" (思旧 si1 jiu4).
And the thing spread by word-of-mouth, and then some idiot heard this and went like "Oh? Dead uncle? (死舅 si3 jiu4)"
So now everyone believes that if you cut your hair in January, your uncle would die. In fact, a lot of barbershops don't even open during that month, because no one would come anyways.
It would've been just an interesting tradition if it weren't for some batshit crazy people.
It was new year 2024, and this guy went for a haircut in a barbershop that was open for some reason.
In the same evening, his uncle died in a car crash.
That wasn't the funny part[4]. The funny part was that his aunt sued him for murder. Her husband died because her nephew got that haircut!
That thing hit the headlines for a while. It was just so fucking funny. Imagine you're a judge and some lady wants her nephew executed for getting a haircut. I'd quit my job.
And then there were those ancient classic stupid puns we had to learn in elementary school. Google tells me they're either called "idioms" which isn't that accurate a name, or "truncated witticisms" which I don't even know what the heck that means. They come in two parts, the first one describing something and the second offering an explanation of the first part -- with a pun in there. In elementary school we had those kinds of questions where they put a bunch of first parts and second parts in two columns and we had to match them.
The most classic example would be the nephew one[5]. It goes like this: "Nephew lights a lantern -- to shine on his uncle." It's logical right, if you light a light you wanna light something up. If a nephew does it, it would be to his uncle. The pun comes in the second part, 照舅 (zhao4 jiu4), which sounds identical to "same as usual" (照旧 zhao4 jiu4). So by saying this, you're saying someone just did the same thing they always did with no change in their behavior.
It's not really limited to old ones. People make new ones all the time too. I remember this one that went like "Anhui gets bombed -- Wuhu goes flying." Wuhu is a city in Anhui province. If Anhui gets bombed, everything inside would get blown away physically, which includes Wuhu city. Wuhu also sounds similar to "woohoo," and this paired with "goes flying" would mean something like "I'm really happy." Which is stupid and funny.
So anyways that concludes this stupid little post about puns.
Why do I say "stupid puns"? Because all puns are ontologically stupid. No matter how clever the pun is it's still stupid. ↩︎
Techinally 正月 (zheng1 yue4), the first month on the Chinese calendar. But whatever. The fault lies in you weird people making up silly names for months. Imagine being a month named "May." I'd just unalive myself. ↩︎
But they happily cut their nails. Don't your nails also come from your parents? Hypocrites. Have I ever told you Confucian culture was ontologically hypocritical? Now I have. ↩︎
People dying ain't funny. ↩︎
What is it with nephews and uncles all over the place. ↩︎