There are two other words that are new to me that I particularly like because they have been the basis of two hilarious puns that I have added to my repertoire of jokes that I make up in Chinese. I say “hilarious puns” but some people might disagree with the use of the adjective “hilarious”. They are definitely puns though, so I will explain them and you can be the judge of whether or not they are actually funny.
The first word is fēng chéng 封城 (literally “block off city” or “close off city”) I overheard this when one of my Chinese students video called a friend in China during lunch break. The friend in China asked 伦敦是不是封城了？ (London is or is not closed off/ has London been closed off?) In English we would probably say “under lockdown”.
The pun is on the word fēng 封 which literally means block off, like a road might be blocked off due to a crash, or the way I block off the windows in Resident Evil 2 so that zombies stop crawling into the police station (I’ve a had a lot of time to play video games under lockdown.) However, fēng 封 is also a homophone for fēng 疯 which means “crazy”. My joke goes something like this: 我听说因为新冠肺炎的缘故伦敦人都被送到神经病医院去。因为整个城市都疯了/封了 (I heard that due to the Coronavirus everyone in London was sent to the insane asylum, because the whole city has gone crazy/been closed off). Suite: The Mandarin Corner
Langue chinoise 中文 