Maternal Grandmother's Fluttering Fragrant Bones

Sometimes, I get hungry. For many years, I would wander into restaurants and point at random Chinese characters on the menu and wait to see what turned up. Usually it was edible, sometimes delicious. Some things, I still don't know what they were (and don't want to.)

As time went on, I began to recognise Chinese characters and by now I can pretty much read an average Chinese menu. But sometimes I get thrown a loop. For example, just last night, I was perusing the delights on offer in a local restaurant and came across

Ah! That sounds good! A literal translation is "Maternal Grandmother's Fluttering Fragrant Bones". That'll go down well with a bowl of rice and a beer or three. On the other hand, I might just have fried noodles again! My maternal grandmother died when I was three. I'm not sure if her bones are fluttering, fairly sure they won't be fragrant and I don't want to eat them anyway!

Still, at least I was able to make it out. It was on a nicely printed menu. What scares me is the blackboard menu. You think Chinese is difficult. Try handwritten Chinese!

Then reddish one on the left is not too bad, but the whiteboard on the right? I'll just point at random and in another ten years I might have worked out 10% of it! Back to Egg Fried Rice!

tags: china  liuzhou  guangxi  restaurants  menu  chinese  grandmother  中国　广西　柳州  

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