This photo of a chūnlián (春聯 / 春联) — couplet for Chinese New Year — has been making the e-mail rounds. (I don’t know the original source.) What’s interesting about this set is that they’re written in Taiwanese, not Mandarin.

I’ve written these left to right. But the orders in the original are

1. to the right of the doorway, top to bottom
2. to the left of the doorway, top to bottom

The writing above the doorway can be seen as separate from the other two or together with them. In the latter case it would be read first, from right to left. It reads 身體顧乎勇, which means “take care of health.”)

The one on the right reads 重情重義嗎著重粉味, which means “attach importance to relationships and brotherhood, but [people] also need to attach importance to powder’s smell” (i.e., to those who wear scented face power: women).

The second one, the one on the left, reads 愛鄉愛土嗎著愛查某, which means “love your home town, love your motherland; but also love women.”

The language of the first half of each of the two vertical strips is formal and traditional. But the style of both second halves is more akin to a sales pitch for a Viagra-like patent medicine.

Bichhin, which looks like a promising blog on Taiwanese (and written in Taiwanese, too), has helpfully rendered this in both the Tai-Luo and church romanization systems. It’s easier to see the rhymes that way.

further reading:

• 【春聯】無意義ma bong學字, Bichhin, March 29, 2007