Chinese characters, invented some 5000 years ago, is believed by most to be the oldest "surviving" writing system still in use. The Egyptian hieroglyphs is gone, so as the cuneiform script of the Sumerian; but our little "square-block characters" prevails after all.
Not only is it indomitable, but it's also as fun as Sokudo to play along with.
Lets start the game with the character "木," which by itself it means a log. In goes another piece aside, you have "林", which means woods. Before you get lost in the woods, add one more atop still and it gets into "森", giving plenty of woods to form a forest. Good time-killer, no?
Take another character "火" or fire in English for example. Double it with one down, you have "炎", meaning the heat of fire. By adding two at the bottom, you have "焱". Know what this means? It means the flame of fire. Still, stretching it further to the limit, you can heat up the combustion by adding one spark more and witness the very becoming of "燚", which, according to Kangxi Dictionary, means a mass of fire.
Then we have "聶", a combination of three small "耳" (or ear to you). By multiplying one ear to three and each close to other, we have a character that signals "whisper".
You see, all this elbow grease I'm doing here helps to prove one thing: the title today is not a typo. Thanks to the great mind of my ancestors, the shop I'm introducing is called "Fish, fish, fish and fish, Fish Soup Specialist" (can you say this five times in a row without mistake?!). First one is for the character "魚", then three in a row for the character "鱻", a nearly forgotten character meaning umami, and the last one telling you what kind of aquatic animal the soup is made of.
Soup of tassled scorpionfish, or weedy stingfish
Soup of trevally
In one English line, indulge me, this joint sells soups of fishes.
You got to hand it to our ancestors.
Yu Sin's Fish Soup Specialist 魚鱻魚湯專門店
98 Ivy Street, Tai Kok Tsui, Kowloon
Tel: 3620.2660
Opening hours: 11am - 11pm
Recent Comments