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When you mistake a motif in a traditional Chinese picture, you could have misinterpreted the meaning of the whole image intended by the ancient craftsman. Dr Yibin Ni has used the following example to illustrate the hidden meaning of a series of i...
Pun Design:
Carrying on the Back + Monkey
Punning Details:
– ‘bei 背’ for ‘carrying on the back’ makes a pun on ‘bei 辈’ for ‘generation’
– ‘hou 猴’ from ‘hou zi 猴子’ for ‘monkey’ puns on ‘hou 侯’ for ‘marqui...
The Chinese character for ‘monkey’ is 猴 hou and it puns on the word for ‘marquis’ in Chinese 侯 hou. The expression ‘mashang 马上’ in Chinese is ambiguous in that it can mean, literally, ‘on a/the horse’, or it can mean, idiomatically, ‘right away’. Therefore, an image of a monkey on the back of a...
This pun rebus picture consists of four essential pictorial elements: bird,
The ancient Chinese would employ a picture of a monkey reaching for a bee hive to wish their boss an imminent promotion. The word for bees in Chinese is ‘feng 蜂’ and the word for monkeys is ‘hou 猴’. When ‘feng’ and ‘hou’ are put together, they can form the phrase 封侯 which means ‘be bestowed a rank of nobility’ in Chinese...