biang biang mian

Yesterday, I was wandering on the street with my friend, we walked and walked, soon I saw a signboard of a Chinese noodle resturant, which shows 3 Chinese characters -biang biang mian. I did not recognize it at the first sight, then these complicated characters reminded me of a story a shaanxi local told me. She told me how to write these characters by remembering a pithy formula. It was such good luck that I met with it, and then I didn’t hesitate to capture it : )

Biáng biáng noodles are a type of noodle popular in China’s Shaanxi province. The noodles, touted as one of the “ten strange wonders of Shaanxi” (陝西十大怪), are described as being like a belt, due to their thickness and length. The “Noodle King” chain in Beijing (梆梆麵北京連鎖店) serves biáng biáng noodles.

Phonetic substitution

Made up of 57 strokes, the Chinese character “biáng” is one of the most complex Chinese characters in contemporary usage, although the character is not found in modern dictionaries or even in the Kangxi dictionary. Because the Chinese character for “biáng” cannot be entered into computers (either the Unicode might not yet introduced), phonetic substitutes like 棒棒麵 (bàng bàng miàn) or 梆梆麵 (bāng bāng miàn) are often used.

Mnemonics

There are a number of ditties familiar to Shaanxi residents used as mnemonics to aid recall of how the character is written.

One version runs as follows:

本文固定链接: http://www.imdale.com/the-most-complicated-chinese-characters-biang-biang-mian/ | Dale | Dale's Blog