Chinese riddles
traditional Chinese language riddles
Chinese riddles stand in a tradition traceable to around the second century CE. They are partly noted for their use of elaborate visual puns on Chinese characters.
According to Timothy Wai Keung Chan, 'the Chinese riddle originates in far antiquity and reached its mature form around the Warring States Period (475–221 BCE)'. However, few riddles are attested in ancient Chinese literature, possibly because Chinese scholarship viewed the form as inappropriate to highbrow literature. The seminal literary historian Liu Xie, writing his Wenxin diaolong in the fifth century CE, situated the beginning of literary riddle-writing in Chinese in the Wei dynasty (220–65); he did not quote examples, but his dating is roughly consistent with the dating of one of the earliest surviving Chinese riddles, the 'Yellow Pongee Riddle'.
The posing and solving of riddles has long been an important part of the Chinese Lantern Festival; "the date of the origin of the lantern riddle is not definite, but according to Japanese writers it probably first became popular during the Northern Sung dynasty (960–1126), and became associated with the Feast of Lanterns during the 17th century".
Terminology
In modern Chinese, the standard word for 'riddle' is mi (謎, literally "to bewilder"). Riddles are spoken of as having a mian (面, "surface", the question component of the riddle), and a di (底, "base", the answer component). Ancient Chinese terms for 'riddle' include yin (讔) and sou (廋), which both mean "hidden".
Character riddles
The Chinese riddle-tradition makes much use of visual puns on Chinese characters. One example is the riddle "千 里 会 千 金"; these characters respectively mean 'thousand kilometre meet thousand gold'.
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