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Biangbiang noodles

Type	Chinese noodles
Place of origin	China
Region or state	Shaanxi
Media: Biangbiang noodles

Biangbiang noodles
Traditional Chinese	𰻞𰻞麵 / 麵
Simplified Chinese	𰻝𰻝面 / 面
Hanyu Pinyin	biángbiáng miàn
Transcriptions Standard Mandarin Hanyu Pinyin biángbiáng miàn Bopomofo ㄅㄧㄤˊ   ㄅㄧㄤˊ   ㄇㄧㄢˋ Gwoyeu Romatzyh byangbyang miann Wade–Giles piang-piang-mien Yale Romanization byángbyáng myàn IPA
Alternative Chinese name
Traditional Chinese	油潑扯麵
Simplified Chinese	油泼扯面
Hanyu Pinyin	yóupō chěmiàn
Literal meaning	oil-splashed hand-pulled noodles
Transcriptions Standard Mandarin Hanyu Pinyin yóupō chěmiàn Bopomofo ㄧㄡˊ   ㄆㄛ ㄔㄜˇ   ㄇㄧㄢˋ Gwoyeu Romatzyh youpo cheemiann Wade–Giles yu-pʻo chʻê-mien Yale Romanization yóupwō chěmyàn IPA

Biangbiang noodles (simplified Chinese: 𰻝𰻝面; traditional Chinese: 𰻞𰻞麵; pinyin: Biángbiángmiàn), alternatively known as youpo chemian (simplified Chinese: 油泼扯面; traditional Chinese: 油潑扯麵) in Chinese, are a type of Chinese noodle originating from Shaanxi cuisine. The noodles, touted as one of the "eight curiosities" of Shaanxi (陕西八大怪), are described as being like a belt, owing to their thickness and length.

Biangbiang noodles are renowned for being written using a unique character. The character is unusually complex, with the standard variant of its traditional form containing 58 strokes.

Noodles

The noodles are thick and belt-like, and are usually hand-made. For most of their existence, they have been an obscure dish local to Xi'an, eaten by workers lacking the time to make thinner noodles. More recently, the noodles have become more widely known across China, in a rise driven to some extent by social media interest in the esoteric character used to write biáng.

The word biáng is onomatopoeic, being said to resemble the sound of the thick noodle dough hitting a work surface.

Chinese character for biáng

There are many variations of the character for biáng, but the most widely accepted version is made up of 58 strokes in its traditional form (42 in simplified Chinese). It is one of the most complex Chinese characters in modern usage, although it is not found in modern dictionaries or even in the Kangxi dictionary.

The character is composed of 言 (speak; 7 strokes) in the middle flanked by 幺 (tiny; 2 × 3 strokes) on both sides. Below it, 馬 (horse; 10 strokes) is similarly flanked by 長 (grow; 2 × 8 strokes). This central block itself is surrounded by 月 (moon; 4 strokes) to the left, 心 (heart; 4 strokes) below, and刂 (knife; 2 strokes) to the right. These in turn are surrounded by a second layer of characters, namely 穴 (cave; 5 strokes) on the top and 辶 (walk; 4 strokes) curving around the left and bottom.

Computer entry and phonetic substitution

Both the traditional and simplified Chinese characters for biáng were encoded in Unicode, on 20 March 2020, for Unicode 13.0.0. The code point is U+30EDE for the traditional form (𰻞) and U+30EDD for the simplified form (𰻝).

Until that point, there were no standardized ways of entering or representing them on computers. Both traditional and simplified forms had been submitted to the Ideographic Rapporteur Group for inclusion in CJK Unified Ideographs Extension G. As the characters are not widely available on computers (and not supported by many fonts), images of the characters, phonetic substitutes like 彪彪面 (biāobiāomiàn) or 冰冰面 (bīngbīng miàn), as well as the pinyin, are often used instead.

The character is described by the following ideographic description sequences (IDSs):

⿺‌辶⿱穴⿱⿲月⿱⿲幺言幺⿲長馬長刂心 (traditional)
⿺‌辶⿱穴⿱⿲月⿱⿲幺言幺⿲长马长刂心 (simplified)

In Adobe's Source Han Sans (prior to 2.002) and Source Han Serif font these IDS sequences do not display as IDS sequences, but display the actual glyphs for the character.

Unicode

After an email discussion with Lee Collins, John Jenkins submitted an application of "" in 2006. However, its IDS was too long at the time and "radical 心 (heart)" is missing from the character shape.

Ming Fan (范銘) submitted an application to the Unicode Consortium. At WS 2015, the traditional character had a code of UTC-00791 and the code of its simplified character is UTC-01312.

However, the evidence for this character does not fully match the character shape. For UTC-00791, "radical 刂 (knife)" has disappeared from the dictionary (which is used as evidence). For UTC-01312, "radical 刂 (knife)" has become "radical 戈 (dagger-axe)" in the academic paper used as evidence. Members of the Unicode Consortium supported the character shape. In a possible April fools' joke, Toshiya Suzuki suggested adding a new block ("CJK Complex Ideographic Symbols"), setting "" as a basic shape, unifying the variation and even admitting "" as a variant of the character.

The character's traditional and simplified forms were added to Unicode version 13.0 in March 2020 in the CJK Unified Ideographs Extension G block of the newly allocated Tertiary Ideographic Plane. The corresponding Unicode characters are:

• Traditional: U+30EDE 𰻞
• Simplified: U+30EDD 𰻝

Mnemonics

There are a number of mnemonics used by Shaanxi residents to aid recall of how the character is written.

One version runs as follows:

Note that the first two lines probably refer to the character 宀 (roof), building it up systematically as a point and a line (river) with two bends.

Origin of the character

The origins of the biangbiang noodles and the character biáng are unclear. In one version of the story, the character biáng was invented by the Qin dynasty Premier Li Si. However, since the character is not found in the Kangxi Dictionary, it may have been created much later than the time of Li Si. Similar characters were found used by Tiandihui.

In the 2007 season of the TVB show The Web (一網打盡), the show's producers tried to find the origin of the character by contacting university professors, but they could not verify the Li Si story or the origin of the character. It was concluded that the character was invented by a noodle shop.

A legend about a student fabricating a character for the noodle to get out of a biangbiang noodle bill also is a commonly believed hypothesis about the origin of the character.

According to a China Daily article, the word "biang" is an onomatopoeia that actually refers to the sound made by the chef when he creates the noodles by pulling the dough and slapping it on the table.

Variants

More than twenty variants of the Traditional character for biáng, having between 56 and 70 strokes:

See also

• Taito (kanji)

Notes

1. ^ The radical 辶 has only three strokes instead of four according to Mainland Chinese stroke order, so the traditional character is written with only 57 strokes there. This is reflected in the graphics of the Song style character and the stroke order animation to the right.
2. The radical 辶 has only three strokes instead of four according to Mainland Chinese stroke order, so the variant with 70 strokes is written with only 69 strokes there. This is reflected in the graphics of the characters below.

References

1. ^ Zhang, Megan. "The Chinese noodle dish whose name doesn't exist". www.bbc.com. Archived from the original on 20 July 2022. Retrieved 10 May 2022.
2. "A Taste of Xi'an in North London". Fuchsia Dunlop. 10 July 2015. Archived from the original on 28 May 2023. Retrieved 14 June 2016.
3. Okrent, Arika (15 May 2013). "What is the Most Complex Chinese Character?". Mental Floss. Archived from the original on 26 May 2023. Retrieved 14 June 2016.
4. "CJK Unified Ideographs Extension G" (PDF). Unicode. 11 March 2020. p. 49⁄63. Archived (PDF) from the original on 24 March 2020. Retrieved 11 March 2020.
5. UTC Character Submission for 2015 Archived 13 August 2023 at the Wayback Machine by the Unicode Consortium
6. See Unicode Technical Report #45 Archived 13 August 2023 at the Wayback Machine and associated data File Archived 13 August 2023 at the Wayback Machine, UTC-00791. The file references this Misplaced Pages article as a primary source and a reason for inclusion.
7. Lunde, Ken (April 8, 2017), "Designing & Implementing Biáng", CJK Type Blog, Adobe, archived from the original on November 12, 2020, retrieved December 30, 2017
8. Lunde, Ken (November 19, 2018), Source Han Sans Version 2.000 (PDF), Adobe, archived (PDF) from the original on February 26, 2021, retrieved November 21, 2018
9. "John Jenkins: Proposed UTC C2 Submission. L2/06-364" (PDF). Archived (PDF) from the original on 17 August 2020. Retrieved 12 August 2020.
10. "Marnen Laibow-Koser: Re:Composition of not included Chinese characters".
11. Pointed out by Satoshi Yamamoto, see CJK Ext. E 6.0. Editorial Group. IRG N1597.
12. Eiso Chan: My answer of "How to pronounce 'biáng'" at Zhihu Archived 28 March 2020 at the Wayback Machine，2016-12-30.
13. Unicode Consortium: IRG N2091R Archived 14 June 2019 at the Wayback Machine, 2 November 2015.
14. The character shape in the dictionary is .
15. The character shape in the paper is .
16. Japan Review on IRG Working Set 2015 ver 2.0 (IRGN2155: p.314-456) Archived 30 August 2019 at the Wayback Machine, 19 August 2016.
17. Toshiya Suzuki: Proposal to add new block "CJK Complex Ideographic Symbols" (WG2 N4796) Archived 15 June 2019 at the Wayback Machine, 1 April 2017
18. Chan, Eiso (4 May 2017). 现在我们是否需要一个新的表意文字区块？ [Should We Need to Create a New Block for Ideographic Characters?]. 知乎专栏 (in Chinese). Archived from the original on 28 March 2020. Retrieved 14 March 2020.
19. "CJK Unified Ideographs Extension G" (PDF). Unicode. 11 March 2020. p. 49. Archived (PDF) from the original on 24 March 2020. Retrieved 11 March 2020.
20. "The Hardest Chinese Character". China Simplified. 28 February 2014. Archived from the original on 25 August 2023. Retrieved 14 June 2016.
21. Henderson, C. J.; Fan, Zhen (18 November 2012). "Biangbiang Shaanxi Street Food". ChinaDaily.com.cn. Archived from the original on 2 June 2023. Retrieved 19 November 2012.

External links

• (in Chinese) CCTV Forum Discussion on biáng Character
• (in Chinese) CCTV writeup on the ten strange wonders of Shaanxi
• Pictures of Chinese signs with biáng characters

• Chinese noodles
• Chinese characters
• Shaanxi cuisine