Shui - Water Water Everywhere!

Shui means water, and boiled, among other things. It's such a basic thing, that we can now use some of the characters we've already learned to look at the whole names of some simple dishes.

As a radical, it indicates liquid, including oils and sauces. That radical is one that looks different than the base character. It may look like three dots splashing off to the left, as we saw yesterday with hai, or the lower dot could take on a little more structure and look like a bent stick. The difference depends on the font, and I'll try to mix it up in the next few days so you can see both versions in the illustrations. (For those who missed what a radical is, here's the post about radicals.)

How to remember: Shui splashes down like a waterfall, irregular and rushing. The character it most looks like is tree 木. Tree, however is very solid and symmetrical. (Fire 火 also looks a little like water, and so we'll get to that soon too, now that we're into cooking methods. I'll just point out that fire looks more ephemeral, less weighty.)

The Pinyin spelling is shuǐ or shui3 (third tone)

Hai - By the Sea, By the Sea, By the Beautiful Sea

When a dish has mixed seafood, you won't necessarily see any characters with the familiar fish or bug radicals. Sometimes you'll just see hai 海, which means "sea", or hai xian 海鮮, which means seafood, or literally it means "sea fresh". (Remember fresh? There was a post about fresh....)

The other time you'll see it on menus is a very important place name: Shanghai 上海. The characters mean "Above Sea", which is where Shanghai is placed. Shanghai is used a lot to differentiate an American-style egg roll from a Shanghai-style spring roll. (We'll get to Shanghai 上海 again when we get to regional cuisines.)

How to remember Hai? Hmmmm. The boxy right side reminds me of a fishing net, maybe. But the thing that is most important is the three dots along the left side, because those three dots are going to take us into the next section.

Those three dots, which look like sea water splashing off the character, are the squished version of the radical for ... WATER! Water 水 is what this planet's life is based on. You can't boil or steam or make sauces without water, and you can't draw their characters either. We'll be starting in on water words tomorrow.

The Pinyin spelling is hǎi, hai3 (third tone).

Xian - Don't be Fresh!

Here's an irony for you. "Fishy" and "muttony" are words that are used in most cultures (including Chinese) to describe an icky off-flavor. And yet, look at the word for "Fresh", xian 鮮 and you will see the characters for Fish and Mutton! Maybe it's that those are two things that have to be fresh to taste good. I don't know. I just find it a hoot.

I remember this one because it's ironic. (I remember the fish. I remember the sheep. The fact that the two of them make "fresh" is just ... memorable.)

You mostly see it as a part of the phrase meaning "seafood", which is hai xian 海鮮, or "sea fresh". We'll wrap up our seafood section with that tomorrow.

The Pinyin spelling is xiān or xian1 (first tone).

You - Attack of the Squid!

Squid is something that will show up on Chinese-only menus. Sometimes it's just you 魷 by itself and sometimes it's you yu 魷魚 - like "squid fish".

And just to make it more interesting, while you's radical is fish, the right side is also the word you 尤, same tone and everything. That character means "outstanding" or "special". This is one of those cases where it is hard to tell whether squid is considered to be an outstanding fish, or if they just use that character because they sound the same. (And the characters end up meaning "fish outstanding-sounding fish".)

Unless cooked perfectly, squid tends get rubbery, so westerners don't like to eat it. But I have this theory that if you see it on the Chinese-only menu, it's more likely to be cooked right. But I could be wrong. (The key to cooking squid, I hear, is that it should be cooked under two minutes, or over two hours. In the first case it doesn't have time to get tough. In the second it is stewed to tenderness.)

How to remember: well that right side looks kind of squiddy to me. The little legs hanging down and looping up and all.

The Pinyin spelling is yóu or you2 (second tone)

Long - Enter the Dragon

The dragon character is my favorite character. It's the first one I learned how to draw. You also see posters of Bruce Lee with this character in the background. Like Bruce Lee, it's a stand alone character. It doesn't act as a radical very often. (The simplified version 龙 shows up in other characters sometimes.)

It does appear on most menus in a few contexts, one is "Dragon and Phoenix" a dish of shrimp and chicken, which is pictured below. Note that the character for phoenix is the bird radical inside a little house. Both of these characters stand for "imperial" at times.

To remember it: all those horizontals and verticals make it a pretty recognizable character. It is also kind of fun to draw, so if you practice drawing it, first the left side and then the right, you will remember it.

Stay tuned to tomorrow's post for the most important use of "dragon" for a foodie. (Hint: did you know they grew dragons in Maine?)

The Pinyin spelling is lóng or long2 (second tone)

Xie -- As Crabby As I Wanna Be

Crab is one of those things that often pops up on the hand written "specials" menu, often only in Chinese. If you like crab, it's a character to watch for.

All of the parts in the character for crab are specific food related characters:

On the bottom you see "bug" 虫, which is a good name for custaceans, and that's the most important marker for remembering this character. But there's also a mess of characters above this radical.

On the left side is the radical for "horn" 角, which is an important character for crab lovers, since it is a part of the name for Crab Rangoon (which in Chinese is often called "Fried Crab Horns" 油蟹觡). We'll get to that one when we get to appetizers later on.

On the right are two characters. The top is knife 刀, and in the middle is a character you should know: cow or beef 牛.

Between beef and bug, you should be able to pick out crab when you need to. (Also the top kind of has the look of a couple of pokey crab claws.)

The Pinyin spelling is xiè or xie4 (fourth tone).

Xia - What a Shrimp!

Shrimp and prawns are all over any Chinese menu, so this is definitely one of the important basics.

How to remember it: The bug radical is on the left, but the most unique part of this character is the double loop at the top right. It's like two flags, or perhaps like two sections of a shrimp's body.

For the shrimp-loving Chinese-food afficianado, Xia 蝦 also highlights one more element of Chinese spoken language. Many of you, I'm sure have heard of Har Gow 蝦餃, which is one of the most famous kinds of dumplings served at dim sum houses. And some of you may notice that the first charater is "xia" but the words say "har." That's because Chinese is made up of more than one langauge.

Mandarin is the language of northern China and is what most people mean when they say "Chinese language". Mandarin itself has multiple dialects, but the dialect of Beijing, Putonghua, is considered the standard. (Except in Taiwan they call it Gouyo to separate themselves from Bejing.) All of the Pinyin spellings and pronunciations I give here are standard Mandarin.

The other major language is Cantonese, which is harder to learn because it has even more tones. Cantonese is the language of Hong Kong...and of Dim Sum.

The good news is, both languages use the same characters. Even Japanese uses a lot of the same characters. It's very convenient for those who wish to read a menu.

The Pinyin spelling is xiā, or xia1 (first tone).

Chong - Don't Let It Bug You

Chong means insect, bug, or worm, and you may be relieved to know that you won't see Chong by itself on many menus. Where it's important is that it is a radical for a lot of seafoods and a few other things, like egg 蛋, as I mentioned in the previous post. And that makes sense, because crabs and crawfish and lobsters and prawns and squids and clams are all kind of sea bugs. (I have a New Englander friend who has always called soft-shelled crabs "fried bugs.")

As a radical it usually appears on the bottom, although not always.

I recognize the bug radical because it's simple enough to remember, and because it looks kind of like a bug to me. The square can be eiher a round body or two bulging eyes, and it has twisty stick legs.

The Pinyin spelling is chóng, or chong2 (second tone).

Dan - Egg-zactly

I mentioned that zi 子, though it can mean egg, is not the character used for egg in Chinese dishes. The character for egg is dan 蛋.

You'll see it on Egg Drop Soup 蛋花湯 (which actually means "Egg Flower Soup"), and on the package of egg noodles I just bought today: 雞蛋面. (Pop quiz -- you've seen two of those three characters. What kind of eggs were used to make the noodles, and which of those characters must mean "noodles"?)

A great way for English speakers to remember dan is to look at the upper right corner. The strokes form a capital E, for "egg". Unfortunately, you can't always see it when the character is small. So I am also going to point you to the bottom half, which is our next radical: Chong, which means insect (and that will lead us to seafood).

The Pinyin spelling is dàn or dan4 (fourth tone).

Zi - A Little One

Zi (pronounced kind of like "dze") means child, or seed, or the wee-hours of the morning. You'll see it all over the place on menus, and it just seems to be there as an affectionate diminutive. Like "-ino" in Italian, or "-ette" in French.

I find it the first thing I recognize for some items -- eggplant and some dumplings for instance -- but it often appears with poultry, which is why I have it here. If you see it next to chicken or duck (or quail) it doesn't mean "egg" nor is it a baby duck or chick. It may mean "young", or it may mean small pieces, or it may be just part of the dish name.

One famous Sichuan dish is La Zi Ji 辣子雞 (Sometimes called Chonqing Spicy Chicken). It's hard to tell what the zi refers to in that. It comes after the peppers, so does it refer to the peppers? (It comes after the word it modifies in other dishes.) If so, many versions of this dish involve big poblano-like peppers, so.... is it sarcastic, as in calling a big guy "Little John" or is it more cutesy? Like maybe it means the equivalent of "Hottie Chicken." We'll learn more about this dish when we get to spices and Sichuan in a couple of weeks.

The Pinyin spelling is zǐ, or zi3 (third tone).

Ji - A Tale of Two Chickens

Just as there are two symbols for bird, there are two for chicken 鷄 and 雞, and they both stand for the same word: ji. The difference doesn't hold much meaning -- it's just which radical they happen to use at a particular restaurant. You'll notice that the radical in this case is on the right.

The part on the left is the part that indicates it's a chicken and not some other bird. It's made up of three stacked characters. Claw 爪, thread 幺 and big 大. I'm thinking it means "big scratcher bird." But that doesn't make it so easy to recognize.

A friend thought the second version looks like chickens scratching around outside a hen house. And that, I think, is the best way to remember it. It's common enough that you can just make a point of identifying it on any menu, and you'll learn it. (Assignment: find a takeout menu with Chinese on it. Which version does that restaurant use?)

The Pinyin spelling is jī, ji1 (first tone).

Niao and Zhui - Two Birds in the Bush

There are two characters for "bird". Both are radicals for Chicken and various other poultry, so it's good to be able to recognize them. Just to confuse you, these radicals generally appear on the right rather than the left, as you will see in the next post about chicken.

Niao 鳥 just means "bird" and it is the most often used. It looks a little like fish 魚, which I'll get to later. It doesn't really look much like a bird to me, unless I see the top as a bird's head, and the bottom as a spread-out wing. (And that helps you separate it from fish, because the four dots underneath are enclosed by the wingtip.)

Zhui 隹, according to most dictionaries, means "short tailed bird" which is odd, because (for food birds at least) it only seems to be used for chicken -- and roosters have long tails. Whereas ducks, which never seem to use zhui, always have short tails. The best way to remember it is that it looks like a hen house.

The Pinyin spelling is niǎo, or niao3 (third tone), and zhuī, or zhui1 (first tone).

Du and Chang - the Guts of the Matter

My favorite Thai restauranteur, Lamai, refers to variety meats as "inside parts." They might also be called guts or organ meats. Whether you love 'em or hate 'em, though, it is important to know which dishes contain them.

Du 肚, aka tripe or stomach, is the most common variety meat you'll come across. It's a mainstay at a lot of dim sum houses.

Chang 腸, aka chitlins or intestine, are the second most common.

Fei 肺, aka lung, is not so common, but is sometimes used as a generic term for offal. (For instance, a famous Sichuan dish that usually features tripe is called "husband and wife lung slices" 夫妻肺片. Someday I'll tell you about that one.)

Gan 肝, aka liver. It's very similar to the character for tripe. I have never seen this in a dish yet, but I have a friend who loves liver, so we are watching for it.

In all cases you see a little ladder shape as the left half of the character. This is the radical for rou 肉, or meat. Sometimes you will see that radical on a word that doesn't refer to inside parts. (For instance, "cashew" is yao guo 腰果, which means "waist fruit". The name may refer to the shape of the nut, or it may refer to the fact that eating a lot of them will go straight to your waist.)

Still, if you don't want to eat inside parts, and you happen to see that radical on a character, be cautious.

As I mentioned in the radicals post, this radical doesn't look much like it's main form, rou 肉. It also looks an awful lot like the character for sun 日, especially sun's radical, as in sunset 旰. Sun doesn't get used in food characters much, but just in case, here's how you can quickly recognize the difference: Just remember that meat has feet (at least the animal did before it was meat), the sun doesn't. Look at the slight difference between liver and sunset: 肝 and 旰.

The pinyin spelling of these yummy or yucky dishes are: dǔ or du3 (third tone), cháng or chang2 (second tone), fèi or fei4 (fourth tone), and gān or gan1 (first tone).

Chuan - Kabob!

Chuan means string together, or connect. It is one of the easiest food words of all, because it looks exactly like what it is: a kabob! You'll commonly see it in reference to Lamb Kabobs 羊肉串.

Chan 丳, which has two sticks, means skewer. I haven't seen it in any of my regular references, but I have noticed it seems to refer to teriyaki. In either case, when you see it, it's a good bet you've got some grilled meat on a stick.

The pinyin spelling is chuàn or chuan4. (It's fourth tone: don't get it mixed up with first tone chuān, which is the short name for Sichuan province - 四川. This is why I don't get into conversational Chinese. Hit the wrong note, and you can say something completely different than you meant!)

And the pinyin for skewer is chǎn, or chan3. Third tone.

Yan - Lamb-a Lamb-a Ding Dong

Lamb tends to be a Muslim Chinese dish. The character usually accompanies the meat symbol, rou, 羊肉.

How to remember it: At least this one has horns or ears at the top to help remember. And the extra line across makes it look like fluffy version of the cow character.

It's a "radical" - or founding character - for a lot of words that have nothing to do with sheep. (More about radicals later.) For instance the word Mei 美, which means "beautiful", is founded on it, and is also the word the Chinese use for "America." (The word "America" sounds kind of like mei guo 美國 to the Chinese, which means "beautiful country -- how's that for pumping the American ego?)

Niu - There's the Beef

Niu, which means cow, usually appears next to Rou, 牛肉, when you're talking about beef, but not always. Sometimes it will stand alone.

To me, it looks like a Free French cross with a leaf on it, which doesn't help me remember it. I suppose if you thought of it as a telegraph pole, it might remind you of the open range out west, where the longhorn cattle roam.

Or you could just memorize it.

These two characters, niu and rou are a good starting place for practice. Get yourself a Chinese menu and look for them, separately and together. You could also look for them in dishes on the all-Chinese specials board. You might see a couple of simple dishes -- boiled beef 水牛肉 or beef congee (thick rice soup) 牛肉粥, or beef noodle soup 牛肉湯麵. (Just beware: Sichuan boiled beef is usually very very spicy.)

The Pinyin spelling is niú or niu2. Second tone, for those who are interested in speaking it.

Rou - Meat of the Matter

When I was but a wee child I noticed that this character was on all of the pork dishes in my local Chinese restaurant menu. I was pretty proud that I had figured it out....

Except sometimes it was on beef dishes. Hmmm.

What it means is "meat", and when used all alone, it almost always means "pork." Other characters can modify it to mean beef 牛肉 or lamb 羊肉, (but I've never seen it used for fish or poultry).

It's easy to recognize. It looks kind of like a rib cage.

The pinyin spelling for it is ròu or rou4. (It's fourth tone, if you're into the conversational lingo.)