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What Does That Mean? (Chinese Food Slang Series 1) February 02, 2026 |
What Does That Mean? (I)
We all love to eat. If not, at least, eating is a way to get our energy. Regardless, eating is a must in our daily lives. I thought it would be fun to dive in some food related Chinese slangs during Chinese New Year. Because there will be many of them out there during the Spring Festival that you will learn when to use or not use them. You may be pleasantly surprised how interesting many of them turn out. Chinese New Year will be here on Feb 17 this year. Remember the fun starts a couple weeks before it is officially here. Have fun and ENJOY! "Kung Hei Fat Choi"!
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Tip/IdeaWhen, Where and How Do You Learn About These Chinese Slangs Using Food Names?
The fun part is that it doesn’t mean exactly what the food looks like or the actual name means. You will need to know more in depth of its background story. This specially happens more often in Cantonese-speaking countries and communities. Why? It is because many of these slangs are brought up through its Hong Kong television series. Then, they spread like wild fire.
Fun CultureExploring Chinese Slangs
兩梳蕉(direct translation: 2 bunches of bananas) In fact, it means empty handed. It refers to when someone goes to visit friends or families and doesn’t bring anything along for the visit. During Chinese New Year, make sure you bring along a small gift with you when visiting instead of "2 bunches of bananas".
蓮子，蓮子，年生貴子 (direct translation - lotus seed, lotus seed, wish you enjoy a bundle of joy with a son every year.) “What? That sounds crazy.” Well, let’s split them apart. Lotus in Chinese is call “lianzi”. The first one, “lian”, sounds the same as the word of “year”. The second word, “zi” can be used in many places. It means seed, son, child, person and a small object. In the Chinese Spring Festival, it is very common to be offered candied lotus seeds as snacks. When newly weds or people, who want to build their families, visit someone, it is popular to be offered this snack with this wish. 大吉大利 - 吉 (pronounced as "gut" without the "t" sound in Cantonese) is a kind of citrus which looks very similar to mandarin orange. But it’s way smaller. You only see the bush in Chinese New Year which is about 2-3 feet tall. (See picture above) People like to buy them during that time as decoration. This 4-word phrase means the bigger the 吉, the luckier and more prosperous you are. Not only during the Spring Festival, you can use it any time, especially for someone's birthday. You will learn more Chinese slangs with food names next month applying in your daily lives. Stay tuned!
Featuring RecipeOrange Tuna PastaWe covered mandarin oranges. Fish is another great ingredient that Chinese people love to incorporate into big festival meal to bring prosperity. With that said, nothing is better than this recipe. You can serve it either cold or hot.
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Recommended ProductChinese New Year Feast eCookbookUnlike typical Chinese dinner or any take-out you get on a regular basis, Chinese New Year is very specific, such as each dish of ingredients, how to make it, how many dishes you are supposed to make, how you are going to name each dish and so forth.Every step of making a dish has one sole purpose. That is getting the most blessings, luck and prosperity for this coming new year.
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