Liuzhou Laowai
 

Liuzhou Weather

Most images on this blog are hosted by ImageShack® who seem to be having many problems. Sorry if any pictures are missing. I'm working on moving them somewhere more reliable.

China Quake Donation

Where is Liuzhou?

Liuzhou Laowai's map homepage

Where are you? Add yourself to my guest map.








Liuzhou Restaurant Reviews

Danwei Model Worker Award

Minority Stamps

Most Popular Tags

                                                           

Search The Archives

Search Blog City Tags

See Related Posts at Blog-City by Entering Any Tag Below. (Will open in new window):

Other Stuff

Snail writing fire

posted Monday, 13 August 2007

Only days after telling you of the record number of fires breaking out around Liuzhou, I spot yet another. This one is more interesting from a gastronomic and a linguistic viewpoint, however. 

Fire in Lousifen Shop

The fire in question took place in a small noodle shop which specialises in Liuzhou's most famous dish, Lousifen (pronounced Low Si Fun). I’ve eaten here. Lousifen is rice noodles in a snail stock with chilli, greens and various other flavourings. A cheap and simple dish. But hot!
 
Lousifen

 

It seems no great damage was done. But I do spot somethng of interest. The sign on the shop front (to the right) advertises the lousifen using the characters below.
 
Lousifen

The headline to the article uses these. (The first three characters of the headline.)

Lousifen

 

Lousifen Article


As you can see the second character is different. Whch is correct?

This is something I've come across before. Despite it being Liuzhou's signature dish, few locals can write it correctly. A few years ago, I asked a class of local university students to write it down. Around 50% got it wrong. Later that day, I asked their lecturers and professors to write it down. They all got it wrong!

I’ve seen both variations on lousifen shops.

Here, the shop is correct; the news report is wrong.

It should be

Lousifen

It is heartening to know that it is not just we laowai who get Chinese wrong, although we do infinitely more often!

tags:              

links: digg this    del.icio.us    technorati    reddit