Many museums and auction houses are often unaware of the pun rebuses hidden in traditional Chinese pictures and have treated them as mere naturalistic ones. Thus, the cultural and social significance contained in the motifs are unfortunately overl...

A gathering of four distinctively different fishes can be read as a pun rebus design expressing an admonishing message ‘qing bai lian jie 清白廉洁’, which literally means ‘pur...

A fish is an ancient symbol of material prosperity and fertility in China, both because it puns with another word yu 余 meaning ‘abundance’, and because of the...

‘Bing di 并蒂’ from ‘bing di lian 并蒂莲’ (twin-headed lotus flower) contributes to the meaning of ‘a loving relationship’.  ‘Gui 鳜’ from ‘gui yu 鳜鱼’...