things i think about while powerwashing 161

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Hello all! I am in Taiwan this week to celebrate Chinese New Year! That means I get to eat my favorite snacks like this not very spicy but still very delicious dried tofu.

It’s kind of like a beef jerky (and I wonder if it’s vegetarian??), but I’ve been liking this since I was a kid. This one’s the mala flavor but growing up I always got the red-braised version.

It’s been a fun few days doing Chinese New Year things, and one thing I usually NEVER do is writing these things called “Spring Couplets” （春聯). I think my Chinese handwriting with a pencil leaves a lot to be desired so when I got put on the spot I was a little nervous!!

To explain very quickly: Spring couplets are kind of like sayings that people say to welcome in the Chinese New Year. One of the classic ones is 恭喜發財 (gong xi fa cai), which most Americans will know in its Cantonese form: gong hay fat choy. These spring couplets usually come in four-character varieties but also extend all the way to …. 7? I think.

Each year people will also come up with slogans that somehow incorporate the zodiac animal and with this year being the very versatile horse we got a LOT of good stuff inclining some bilingual puns!!!!

• 馬年大吉 (ma nian da ji), in the year of the horse I hope you have great prosperity
• 馬力全開 (ma li quan kai). not sure how to translate this. OPEN HORSEPOWER

A very popular one is to say 馬上XX with characters replacing each X since 馬上 means to “hurry up.” Thus we get some less poetic ones but still very funny ones like:

• 馬上戀愛(ma shang lian ai). Find a significant other soon please
• 馬上開心 (ma shang kai xin). I hope you are happy soon!
• 馬上有房 (ma shang you fang). I hope you have a house soon
• 馬上有車 (ma shang you che). Hope you get a car soon
• 馬上有錢 (ma shang you qian). I hope you have money soon
• 馬上加薪 (ma shang jia xin). I hope you get a raise soon

And now as a result of English being spoken everywhere on the internet, and the internet being generally available everywhere (YMMV), we have wonderful bilingual puns like:

• 馬尼多多 (ma ni duo duo): ma ni doesn’t mean anything, but it sounds like “money” in English. So this one means I hope you have a lot of money this year
• 好事發生 (hao shi fa sheng): It’s generally very nice to say this phrase because it means I hope good things happen to you. But it’s also funny because for some reason people think “hao shi (sure)” sounds like “horse.” Kiiiiind of a stretch.

But yes this newsletter should be publishing for everyone who reads this newsletter on Chinese New Year eve, so I hope you can take some inspiration from this newsletter and maybe text one of your Chinese-speaking friends 恭喜發財 + one of the four character spring couplets I’ve listed above!

祝大家新年快樂！恭喜發財，年年有餘，大吉大利，馬上有錢，馬尼多多！

museum of the week

I came across this exhibit about early planes in one of San Francisco airport’s fun little museums. I thought they’d have a picture of the Wright brothers but it seems that these pictures were taken much after that event.

anonymous subscriber news

Keep it up anon!!! You got this!!!!!!

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• anon perishes: I've written so many cover letters and received so many form rejections, I wish to perish ;)
• anon looks: look at the sweet kitties in their little houses!

animal of the week

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You can see how backed up this queue is from the beautiful golden color of the ginkgo leaves in this submission from esteemed subscriber Carolyn Xu. What a stunning feline as well!

Beijing cat with ginkgos!

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