It’s a Chinese poster of a baby riding a carp, with the caption 幸福有余. The first two Chinese characters mean "happiness," and the second two mean "plenty, surplus, more than enough" but are pronounced the same as the Chinese for "have fish" or "there are fish." Hence the fish illustration. It is for similar reasons that fish are always part of a traditional Chinese New Year feast, because "having fish every year" represents "having plenty every year." When I found the picture, which was yesterday or the day before, I didn't pay any attention to the Chinese. I just wanted a picture of a tyke on a fish.
Earlier today (technically yesterday), I posted "Hey, Mary, show me that riff," featuring a Leo Moracchioli music video. Bill left a comment asking about the Chinese characters on Leo's T-shirt, which I hadn't even noticed. His shirt reads 吉庆有余 -- a variant of the phrase seen on the fish poster, except that it says "good luck" or "fortune" rather than "happiness" (though Chinese doesn't really make much of a distinction between those two concepts). The last two characters are exactly the same, with the "enough and to spare" meaning and the "fish" homophony.
I had looked up the Leo video because the tune of "Bananas and Blow" reminded me of "Sultans of Swing." So two entirely different associative trains began at "Bananas and Blow" and ended with a four-character Chinese idiom meaning "plenty of luck/happiness."
3 comments:
Speaking of Chinese puns, "banana green" sounds like "anxiety," and so green bananas ripening and turning yellow symbolizes overcoming anxiety. The "Bananas and Blow" rebus featured green bananas.
https://chinaskinny.com/blog/chinese-youth-pun-culture-workplace
Overcoming anxiety? That'd sure be nice. (Though, I'm not doing too badly at the moment.)
The two carp are representative of Pisces, the sun sign you, Debbie and I were born under.
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