Alternatively, browse terms in alphabetical order according to their Chinese Pinyin 汉语拼音
Pun Design: Five + Bat + auspicious character of ‘Longevity 寿 or 壽’ Punning Details： – ‘蝠 fu’, the Chinese name for bats, puns on ‘福 fu’, meaning ‘good fortune’. – ‘wu fu 五蝠 five bats’, is homophonous with ‘wu …
Continue reading “May five blessings come your way on your birthday”
Pun Design ： Five + Boy + Fighting over + Helmet Punning Details： – The action of five (more or fewer) boys fighting over something refers to ‘夺 duo’. ‘Five’ is a function word. – ‘kui 盔 helmet’, is a …
Continue reading “May your five sons come out first in civil examinations”
Pun design: Spider + descending from the sky Punning mechanism: ‘Zhi zhu (蜘蛛, spider)’ has a nickname ‘xi zi (蟢子)’ or ‘xi zhu (喜蛛)’ meaning the ‘lucky one’ or ‘lucky spider’. Its first character ‘xi 喜(蟢)’ for ‘happiness (good luck)’ …
Pun Design： Magpie + Prunus + On Top Punning Details： – ‘xi 喜’ in ‘xi que 喜鹊’ magpie has another meaning in Chinese which is ‘happiness’. – ‘mei 梅’ meaning ‘prunus’ is a pun in Chinese on ‘mei 眉’ for …
Continue reading “May you have good luck and your happiness show at the tip of your eyebrow”
Lily flowers and butterflies form a pun rebus picture known as ‘Xuān Dié Tú 萱耋图’, meaning ‘May mother live up to a ripe old age’. ‘Xuan 萱’ in the picture title comes from ‘xuan cao 萱草’, the Chinese name for …
One egret (鹭鸶, similar shape as heron), which can be referred to in Chinese as ‘一鹭 yi lu’, makes a pun (i.e. a homophone) on the phrase ‘一路 yi lu’, for ‘all the way’. The lotus pod ‘莲窠 lian ke’, …
An egret and lotus flowers (莲花) are pictured in combination to infer ‘Yi Lu Qing Lian’, which means ‘You are an honest and uncorrupted official in your entire career’. ‘Yi lu 一鹭’ for ‘one egret’ puns on ‘yi lu 一路’ …
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The character ‘yu 玉’ in ‘yulan hua 玉兰花’ for ‘magnolia’ is the same ‘yu 玉’ for ‘jade’. The word ‘tang 棠’ from ‘haitang hua 海棠花’ for ‘crabapple’ is homophonic with the word ‘tang 堂’ for ‘house’. The combination of the …
Continue reading “May your jade palatial home be honoured and full of riches”
The action of ‘pointing to the sun’ is termed in Chinese as ‘指日 zhi ri’, which sounds and looks exactly the same as (both homophone and homograph of) the phrase ‘指日 zhi ri’ meaning ‘in a few days’ time’. The …
Continue reading “May your chance of promotion be just round the corner”
The Chinese character ‘an 鹌’ in ‘anchun 鹌鹑’ for ‘quail’ makes a pun on ‘an 安’ for ‘peace’. The character ‘zhu 竹’ for ‘bamboo’ is a pun on ‘zhu 祝’ for the verb ‘to wish’ and thus is used here …