Chinese New Year, Volume 1

Wealth.  Treasure.  Joy.  Score a goal- well, that too- Advance.  Whether or not you knew that the Chinese characters printed on these apples had those meanings, you’d more likely want to know that they still taste like apples.  And what the heck someone was doing messing with your fruit.

So, take a chill pill for a moment and imagine that it was time for another Chinese New Year.  Anything that you can eat, shouldn’t eat and haven’t eaten yet becomes prey to food symbolism (or, China has a big population…), and the all mighty homophone.  What’s that?  As an example, junk can mean garbage or rubbish.  Maintaining the China theme, junk can also refer to a ship, the kind that that existed long before the Star Ferry ride became more of a bridge than a boat.  Homophones come in handy for the holidays, when everything from bean curd and ginkgo nuts to dumplings and, gasp, rice, represent various prosperous words.

Back to the main event, the homophone of the day regards apples.  The pronunciation of apple in Chinese is píng​guǒ (苹果), and the sound píng​ (平) also means peaceful.  Then what are all of those other characters doing in the picture?  Think about it another way: wouldn’t it be unusual if everything you bought had its (product) name branded on it?  You can forget about naming your child.

How is Chinese New Year celebrated where you live?