Dai Wan Bean Yew. 「魯味」, A Taiwan Thing?

[Kobo-Daishi]

I was watching the award-winning Ariel Lin romance drama In Time With You and came across what I felt sure was a typo.

But just to be sure I did a Google image search for "魯味"and they returned 165,000 hits. Most, if not all, from sites based on Taiwan.

One is even from a blog post questioning whether a night market vendor isn't using the wrong character in their signage.

A mistake? Or are a lot of people purposely using the incorrect character just to be cool? Is this a Taiwan thing?

Anyway, I made a note of it for my personal dictionary that I use with GoldenDict.

For those who might be interested in what Google image returns for the various ways of writing "lu wei"

http://www.google.com/search?tbm=isch&hl=en&source=hp&biw=1024&bih=516&q=%22%E9%AD%AF%E5%91%B3%22&btnG=Search+Images

http://www.google.com/search?tbm=isch&hl=en&source=hp&biw=1024&bih=516&q=%22%E6%BB%B7%E5%91%B3%22&btnG=Search+Images

http://www.google.com/search?tbm=isch&hl=en&source=hp&biw=1024&bih=516&q=%22%E9%B9%B5%E5%91%B3%22&btnG=Search+Images

http://www.google.com/search?tbm=isch&hl=en&source=hp&biw=1024&bih=516&q=%22%E5%8D%A4%E5%91%B3%22&btnG=Search+Images

I hadn't had lu wei in ages, but, by sheer coincidence, a Filipina co-worker brought in a whole mess of lu wei to work, by way of a Chinese deli in southern California's San Gabriel Valley (the Chinese burbs), run by two ethnic Chinese from Vietnam, and she gave me some for lunch.

Hog jowls, pig snout, pig's ears, and tongue. I was in hog heaven.

The tongue was done to perfection. So tender. Like filet mignon or prime rib. Melts in your mouth.

The chewy cartilage of the ears.

And the richness of the jowls and snout. Very fattening and full of cholesterol.

But, then you only live once.

I'm thinking of buying some raw tongue, jowls, ears, etc. from my local butcher and trying my hand at making some lu wei myself.

Kobo.

[skylee]

I would write 滷味 instead. I find "魯"味 quite unacceptable. But perhaps some people in Taiwan like to write it this way (similar to Mainlanders using 河蟹 to represent 和諧).

[xiaocai]

I think 鲁味 is just plainly wrong. For someone from mainland China I would have thought that 鲁味 means dishes from 山东...

[andysun731]

Maybe it's 卤味.

[Kobo-Daishi]

xiaocai wrote:

I think 鲁味 is just plainly wrong. For someone from mainland China I would have thought that 鲁味 means dishes from 山东...

Oh, I hadn't thought that 鲁 was also another name for Shandong province. Just like Yue is for Guangdong.

So, that's why that blog post wondered if it might not have been transmitted from Shandong.

I just knew it from it being a part of the word for "Yale" and from "Lu Xun".

I guess it's equivalent to the nicknames that US states have, like California is the "Golden State", Florida is the "Sunshine State", Texas is the "Lone Star State", etc.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_U.S._state_nicknames

Or the nicknames for US cities. Los Angeles is "the city of Angels", New York is "the big apple", Chicago is "the windy city", and so on.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_city_nicknames_in_the_United_States

Kobo.

[Kobo-Daishi]

andysun731 wrote:

Maybe it's 卤味.

Yes, that's what we're talking about. I guess in Harbin, you aren't able to access Google. Else you'd be able to see all the images of yummy lu wei.

Kobo.

[xiaocai]

@ Kobo-Dashi

Very similar I'd say. I don't know much about the nicknames of US states and cities, but the one character names of Chinese provinces actually are officially recognised like U.S. state abbreviations. They are used on licence plates for example. So a car registered in 济南 with bear 鲁A on its plate.

[Lu]

Speaking of typos... 'bean yew'? My POJ is very rusty by now, but perhaps it should be beng-iu?

[OneEye]

Well, if we're talking POJ, it would also be Tai-oan, so I don't know what romanization system Kobo's using. There must be several dozen of them by now, since everyone who comes out with even a 台語 phrase book feels like they ought to reinvent the wheel.

To the subject, I see both 魯味 and 滷味 all the time. The latter probably more frequently, but not by much. Anyway, it wouldn't be the first time a character was borrowed for its sound without regard for its meaning, and it's a common enough usage to be considered acceptable, IMO.

[skylee]

No, it is not acceptable, IMO.

[OneEye]

Well, then there are a lot of Taiwanese people who would disagree with you on that. Usage is what determines acceptability in a language, and I'd say the widespread usage of 魯味 makes it acceptable. Again, it wouldn't be the first time this has ever happened in the history of the Chinese writing system. 戰國 bamboo slips are rife with 通假字, many of them occurring very frequently, like 封 and 邦 often being interchangeable because they were pronounced similarly (丰 was the original phonetic in both, 封 is not a 會意字 as was mistakenly believed for a long time). Do it enough times, and it becomes right.

[skylee]

Same as you I am entitled to my opinions.

[OneEye]

I never said otherwise.

[skylee]

I see.

[andysun731]

Google seems to be OK now. I often watch TaiWan TV shows, e.g. 康熙来了. So I have seen a lot of delicious 卤味, haha~

[xiaocai]

Since Chinese is polycentric language I think we may say that the use of 鲁味 is acceptable in certain Chinese speaking areas but not in others.

[imron]

Usage is what determines acceptability in a language

From a practical viewpoint I agree with this, however I also agree with the general sentiment of skylee's post. For example, despite widespread usage, I will never consider 'u' and 'r' as acceptable replacements for 'you' and 'are'

Unfortunately I, and people like me, will eventually die, the English language will move on and the generations brought up accepting such usage will have their own abominations to rail against.

[Kobo-Daishi]

skylee wrote:

But perhaps some people in Taiwan like to write it this way (similar to Mainlanders using 河蟹 to represent 和諧).

I could understand that "河蟹", "river crab" for "和諧", "harmony; harmonious" is a punning social/political commentary and all that.

But "魯味" for "滷味" seems to have no rhyme nor reason.

Okay, I really don't get the crab thing either, but, people tell me it's social commentary, so I'll take their word for it.

Kobo.