Newbie - Does it Have Bones?

Here is a useless information for western lerners. Please take a look at the 骨 in today's picture. The small "口" in the upper part of the character is located on the left side in modern Mandarin, however interestingly enough, it's located on the right side in Japan.

Historically, the "right" variant precedes the "left" one. The 骨 characters in small seal scripts (小篆书) and clerical scripts (隶书), which appeared more than two thousand years ago, commonly have the "口" on the right side, just like the Japanese kanji "骨".

I don't know exactly when the location of "口" changed, but at least the 骨 in 康熙字典 (1716) is the same as that used in modern Mandarin, that is to say, "口" is on the left side. The one in 广韵 (1008) has something like "人", instead of "口", in the middle. It might be a transitional form, hehe.

I guess that the location of "口" changed sometime in the past because of calligraphical standpoint in China. Perhaps the "left" type was easier to write. More importantly, the "left" type has one less stroke count than the "right" one. The less, the better ... ?

http://chinese-characters.org/meaning/9/9AA8.html

Hi changye,

What a fascinating bit of information. Thanks for sharing.

thanks changye for the useful info for us, always wondered about this. aesthetically i prefer the old version (same as Japanese), but i'm biased.

how come the viewer here does these weird little conversions to the text, like in all the comments here the character turns into 骨?  another one i've seen that happen to is 直.

甲骨文jia3gu3wen2.  the earliest recorded 汉字han4zi。shell and bone literature.

i've got into the habit of spitting out my bones  in a nice neat pile on the table or randomly on the floor, depending on where i am, and only taking the heads of prawns, crunchy, but tasty.

barbs, 软骨 cartiledge, yep that's right. what we call 'grissel' back home is commonly called 筋骨jin1 here. 脑筋nao3jin1，brain matter.

..yeah,I noticed that yesterday when I was typing 骨.When you type g..u..and then hit the space bar to get your choices I noticed the little box at the top was on the left hand side but then when you select it ,it types the character with the box on the right side.Interesting.Thanks changye.

miantiao,

I noticed that character 筋 yesterday also as it came up in 皮筋 for rubber band and I noticed the 筋 component meant muscle,so I presumed it was there for muscles stretchy characteristics like rubber bands.I was initially a tad surprised that it's turned up in a word meaning grissel,as the 筋 component representing muscle is actually the meat,but you do have grissel where muscle and bone meet,so that seems to make sense.Thanks for that mate.

bababardwan,

Having done this bone marrow drinking myself, at a few 东北 restaurants in Tianjin, it took a bit of effort drinking the marrow from the upper leg of a pig.  If I remember right (haven't done this for a few years) it is easy once you start, but it's not liquidy, so yeah, takes a lot of effort to suck it through the straw.  I remember my straw being a little bigger (wider) than that guys though.  He could easily be posing after having gotten most of the marrow that is worth getting out, or starting...who knows.

Hi zhenlijiang

Yeah, that's why I said "please take a look at the picture" in my comment. Probably it's a problem caused by something related to Unicode. Or perhaps this only happens when using browsers with Japanese characters. I use Firefox (Japanese).

There are a lot of this kind of "subtly different" characters besides 骨 and 直, e.g., 花，延 and 差. And this is one of the reasons some stupid scholars are trying to standardize the forms of Chinese characters used in China, Taiwan, Korea and Japan.

rich,

Thanks mate for confirming what I suspected as I thought it would be viscous and,yeah I noticed that it just looked like an ordinary diameter straw,not the sort of larger bored one I've used when having the cheap thrill of sucking up the tapioca pearls while drinking pearl milk tea [bubble tea]:

As the resistance to flow is directly proportional to the viscosity and inversly proportional to the 4th power of the radius,such a small increase in straw diameter makes a big difference.I suppose it also depends on the diameter of the marrow cavity as to what size straw will suit.Do they ever have specially made straws for this purpose? But as resistance is also proportional to the length of the straw,I think the straw is obviously just an etiquette thing,and it would be easier to ditch it and just suck directly from the bone.This chap seems to have the idea here.

Actually,looking at that photo again,I think he is posing as the plate it's on looks too small and clean.I think the original plate is the larger one in the foreground.

stupid question user deleted

Hi zhenlijiang

Sorry, Japanese only. Anyway, it's a kind of fantasy.

http://japanese.joins.com/article/article.php?aid=92569&servcode=100&sectcode=110

http://www.recordchina.co.jp/group/g12549.html

http://www.recordchina.co.jp/group/g12742.html

http://www.recordchina.co.jp/group/g29134.html

Very useful stuff!

For me I don't like too many bones in my food, because I am trying my best not to imagine a dead anumal lying on my plate!

... I have only been eating meat for less than 3 years and I really need to broaden my horizons. Especially before I head off to Ghana!

Thx for the lesson.

Now i can say i don't want bones in my plate. I hate seeing bones while eating, i think it's quite morbid.

How would I say in Chinese, "I love eating meat straight off the bone"？

"I love eating meat straight off the bones" 中文怎么说？  （Zhong1wen zen3me shuo1)

- 我喜欢吃上骨头的肉   ？？？？？

wo3 xi3huan chi1 shang4 gu3tou de rou4 ?????

only this word: bones

a little "血腥xue3xing1",hehe

couse my poor english

"I love eating meat straight off the bones" 中文怎么说？  （Zhong1wen zen3me shuo1)

the pictures seemingly says grinskin

so  i think should say like this:

我喜欢吃排骨~~o(∩_∩)o...

Speaking of fishbone (鱼刺 yúcì) in the supplementary vocabulary, I noticed that having a fishbone blocked is the throat (骨鲠在喉) also means that you can't express all your feelings and 如鲠在喉 means that someone else reveals your hidden feelings. To help memorization, it's interesting to remember that this character 如 (as in 如果) is made of 女 and 口.

FYI, in France we eat the marrow as well. With the right cooking and the right animal, we can even eat most of the bones or the fishbones.

This title is very exciting for me because, as a lover of gourmet French cooking, I know that a big difference between classic French cuisine and Chinese cuisine is that the French will create a stock with the bones, boiling the stock down and discarding the bones, and then add the stock back into the dish, really wasting nothing and the Chinese simply leave the bones in, also gaining a lot of flavor from the bones. Bone-marrow is one of the best flavors on Earth. It is a shame that often the bones are discarded on the basis of them being inedible.

changye, i should have known of course.  fantasizing is fine but Japanese scholars have no business getting involved, they should politely decline all invitations to participate.

I've learned to pick the flesh off the fish where the bones are big and easy to spit out. I really hate the pork ribs and chicken bits that have been chopped with the cleaver as they are filled with tiny shards that are a pain to locate by tongue and spit out. Lucky for me we buy unchopped ribs at the market and cook them up whole. YUM!

Gotta love bone stock soup though!

Really glad I am a vegetarian!

antony73,

Bababardwan has answered for me. Soft bone is cartilage, 软骨/ruan3 gu3. It is considered a delicacy in China. KFC even launched a special chicken kebab that has bits of cartilage between the chicken meat. Their recipe for success in China.   

Isn't it interesting how more and more parts of the animals we eat have left the dinner table?

When my grandmother was cooking there were always bones in the soup and on the meat. And we all used to gnaw on them happily. Just like they still do in China. Kidneys, liver, tongue etc. were considered to be delicacies.

Nowadays this is all thrown away - or at best processed to dog food.

We all become more and more spoiled and our food has to look like the plastic toys in the next supermarket shelf. Just like delicious apple cultivars like Boskoop or Cox's Orange Pippin are slowly replaced by the boring but shiny "Red Delicious" or "Golden Delicious".

There is more to an animal than just a piece of tenderloin. If we kill it, we should at least not waste most of it.

Some poddies here may be wondering like I did how to say in Mandarin "give my dog a bone". I looked it up and whoa, there is a measure word (classifier) for bone. It is 根 gen1. Alright, I figured it won't be a hump busting effort (eh... thanks Pete) for me to learn this word.

根 gen1 - classifier for long, thin things. The radical is 木 mu4 = tree. Don't ask me how the Chinese fore fathers figured a tree is a long, thin thing...maybe trees were very thin then, or maybe long, thin objects were gotten from wood, who knows the etymology of this word, but there it is. 

So, the object phrase is 一根骨头 yi1 gen1 gu3 tou5 = a bone.

I give my dog = 我给我的狗 wo3 gei3 wo3 de5 gou3

Put the two together, and I get 我给我的狗 一根骨头wo3 gei3 wo3 de5 gou3 yi1 gen1 gu3 tou5.

Enough to convey the meaning, I hope. 

p.s. since I'm on a roll...

gave my dog a bone  我给了我的狗 一根骨头wo3 gei3le wo3 de5 gou3 yi1 gen1 gu3 tou5.

threw my dog a bone  我仍了给我的狗 一根骨头wo3 reng1 le5 gei3 wo3 de5 gou3 yi1 gen1 gu3 tou5

since my dog is like family to me, i'll forego the 的 : 我仍了给我狗 一根骨头wo3 reng1 le5 gei3 wo3  gou3 yi1 gen1 gu3 tou5

caution: i made up these sentences without the help of a native teacher.

Hi chiongzibide and lucksarah

How about this one? 

我很喜欢吃带骨肉。(dai4gu3rou4) = 带骨头的肉
I like to eat bony chops.

Hi paulinurus

There is another measure word "块" (kuai4) for 骨头. Maybe it depends on the shape of a bone. As you wrote, 根 is used for something long.

我给了小狗一块骨头。
我给小狗扔了一块骨头。
我扔了一块骨头给小狗吃。

hi changye,

thanks a lot for the help!

chiongzibide：

I love eating meat straight off the bones.

我喜欢啃骨头上的肉。
Wǒ xǐhuan kěn gǔtou shàng de ròu.

I agree completely.

Hi lujiaojie

Thanks a lot fot the vivid expression. I just found that one of my dictionaries says "啃骨头" also means "eat meat straight off the bone", so maybe you can say 我喜欢啃骨头. Is this right?

大

新学生。

我是越南人。　我

"骨 头 "是 第 一课 我 听 过。我 也 吃过 骨 头 在 越 南，可是 我知 不 知 道它相 中国的 。不 过， 它 真 的 很 好 吃 。

我

是 新人 所以 请问大家 觉得　chinesepod 怎么样 ?

niji

CPod 是最好 [is the best].欢迎来CPod 朋友[welcome to CPod mate]. :)

ps As you're new I thought I would try and gently point out that comments policy at bottom of page requests that when you post in Chinese you provide English translations for Newbie and Ellie lessons for the sake of Newbies and Ellies.Good job though and good luck mate.

喔！

我看到了好多人用繁体，看着太别扭啦！

排骨当然有骨头啊！

Hey,

Wo bu tai xihuan gutou, but the very first time I met my girlfriend's mother we went to a nice restaurant in Beijing, and out come the big bones with the straws in the center. I was kind of freaked out, but so determined to make a good impression on her mother that I went ahead and put the gloves on and sucked the marrow. It's something I would definitely NOT choose to do again. Anyway, I experienced it. That's what counts.

henning,

your comment gives us food for thought(耐人寻味nai4ren2xun2wei4）. my father grew up on a dairy farm. back then most farmers were not all that well off. when his father slaughtered a 'beast' almost the whole animal was used for food consumption. his favourite； pig's trotters 猪脚zhu1jiao3，boiled tripe 水煮牛肠 shui3zhu3niu2chang2zi，and lambs fry 炒羊脑筋chao3yang2nao3jin1。

possum and rabbit stew were staple protein sources for many australians in the bush up until the post-war period. 砂锅牛排骨sha1guo1niu2pai2gu3 beef stew/casserole.

hmm,

Yeah,in Oz definitely my observation that we ate from a greater variety of animals as miantiao points out in my grandmothers day and were much more inclined to eat offal,such as kidneys,liver and tripe,and brains.Of course in recent times there has been some concern expressed over transmissible spongiform encephalopathies from eating sheeps brains,but I think the decline in eating it probably predated this more recent concern for reasons I'm unaware of.I'm not sure if the decline in eating offal stemmed from some of the associated health concerns or if it was just a trend that phased out and people just preferred meat.Perhaps it was just easier to prepare compared with say intestines.We then seemed to go through a period of a pretty uniform diet not unlike an English diet in those days which was pretty unvaried.Even to this day there are occasional Aussies who are strictly "meat and 3 vegies" people.But with the post war migration,thankfully the variety in cuisine has greatly improved [but not offal or variety of meats].

英文做的汤没有骨头，中国汤有骨头也有味精。听说味精可以做你的头发掉下。English made soup has no bones, Chinese soup has bones and also wei jing. Heard that wei jing can make you lose hair.

paulinurus

maybe 味精 is not good but 骨头 is good for our health  i guess

some people said a little 味精 is good，too much is bad！

一些人说适量的味精是有益的，放太多的话就不好了

When we were kids, getting the peice with the bone marrow was like the prized item in a mutton dish....and we used the bone marrow spoons....don't think any one uses them these days...take over by straws....

amrita,

Aha;thought there'd have to be some specially designed implement if it's a relatively common practice.Thanks for the nice pic.In the absence of this specially designed tool,I wonder whether a lobster pick would have done the job?:

penyu,你好！

我同意，骨头对我们的健康做更好，骨头里有蛋白质，可能做身体的肌肉增长更大。但是味精呢？味精怎么可能做身体更好? I agree that bones can improve our health, the protein in bones can make muscles grow bigger. But, wei jing? How does wei jing improve our health? 

I grew up in a town in Malaysia called Klang.  Klang is famous for a Hokkien breakfast called "Bak Kut Teh".  Shops specialise in serving Bak Kut Teh with Chinese tea.  They have an enormous pot of "Bak Kut" (i.e., gutou rou) which is boiled continuously with spices and a dark sauce.  It is served with rice.  The soup that comes along with it is delicious.  We like to dip "yawchakuai" (some kind of crusty deep-fried bread which people in Hong Kong eat with rice porrige - another wonderful breakfast food) in the soup.  I like it very much, but didn't eat Bak Kut Teh often, partly because my dad had high blood pressure, and we assumed (perhaps incorrectly) that Bak Kut Teh would be high in cholestoral.

Would Poddies with a Western background think that having Bak Kut Teh for breakfast is controversial?  I could not enjoy Bak Kut Teh with my Muslim friends, as Bak Kut is always pork based.  But perhaps my Western friends might be willing to try?  (However, Bak Kut Teh doesn't seem to be available in Sydney where I now live.)

When ordering Bak Kut Teh, a customer may be specific about what type of meat (fatty, lean, with bones, etc) he or she wants.

I often see many elderly customers enjoying a long leisurely meal of Bak Kut Teh with their friends in the morning.  It seems a wonderful way to spend one's retirement.

changye：

“我喜欢啃骨头”也对。

“我喜欢啃骨头上的肉”，emphasize the “肉” 是“骨头”上的“肉”。

Hi lujiaojie

Thanks for the reply. I've found another interesting word 贴骨肉 (tie1 gu3 rou4), which indicates "meat attached to the bone".

I rate this lesson excellent.  My problem is pronunciaton & vocabulary.  This lesson has lots of repetition and clear pronunciation of words which help greatly in mastering the language. 

The chinese loves tender meat and meat next to the bones is not only tender but most tasty!

That guy's not wearing gloves.  I understand that the red stuff will stain your hands for weeks.  I've had these marrow bones in Singapore but have always worn gloves.

What/why is the difference between the word for bones and fish bones?

Hi nderrett

Fish bones are very small. They are called “鱼刺”yúcì.

It may be easier to remember this if you know that 刺 means "thorn." You can see the "knife radical 刂" on the right side which shows you that this is something sharp.

People were wondering why the 口 in 骨 is at times on the left and at others on the right. It depends on which fonts are installed.

For 骨 it's neither here nor there, but the two versions of 直 look like two different characters.

Hi frognotinawell

As far as the three characters concern, it seems to me ............

简体 SimSun
日本 PMingLiU
日本 Arial Unicode MS
日本 MS Mincho
简体 SimHei
简体 KaiTi_GB2312

Please be noted that the character 差 also has two different forms. They are slightly different from each other.

@kien, I love Bak Kut Teh, particularly the Teochew style one which is clear, pale, and very peppery. I love the soup garnished with lots of coriander and eat the meat dipped in dark caramel soy with sliced red chillies. When we were living in the middle east and in the UK, we made our own, using packets of pre-mixed spice bought during visits home to Singapore. For the benefit of non-Hokkien speaking poddies, it is translated as 肉骨茶 ròugǔchá.

学习中文的方法和如何认识更多的热情好客的中国朋友 http://chinesepod.com/community/conversations/post/4862