Biangbiang noodles

Biangbiang noodles (𰻝𰻝面/面), alternatively known as youpo chemian (油泼扯面) in Chinese, are a type of noodle popular in the cuisine of China's Shaanxi Province. The noodles, touted as one of the "eight strange wonders of Shaanxi" (陕西八大怪), are described as being like a belt, owing to their thickness and length.

Biangbiang noodles
TypeChinese noodles
Place of originChina
Region or stateShaanxi
Biangbiang noodles
Traditional Chinese𰻞𰻞麵/麵
Simplified Chinese𰻝𰻝面/面
Hanyu Pinyinbiángbiángmiàn
Alternative Chinese name
Traditional Chinese油潑扯麵
Simplified Chinese油泼扯面
Hanyu Pinyinyóupō chěmiàn

The noodle is broad and hand-made. It was originally part of a poor man's meal in the countryside, but has recently become renowned due to the unique character used in its name.[1]

Dishes with this noodle are often topped with many red-hot peppers for the cold winter in Shaanxi.

Chinese character for biáng
The Traditional character for biáng in calligraphic regular script
The Traditional character for biáng in a Song font
The Simplified character for biáng in a Song font
American singer and TV personality in China Slater Rhea (帅德) writes and explains a biáng character on Xi'an TV.

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[Note 1] (42 in simplified Chinese), and the Chinese character for biáng is one of the most complex Chinese characters in modern usage,[2] although the character 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[Note 1]) 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 March 20, 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).[3]

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.[4] 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 (bīngbīngmiàn), as well as the pinyin, are often used instead.

The character is described by the following ideographic description sequences (IDSs):[5]

⿺‌辶⿳穴⿰月⿰⿲⿱幺長⿱言馬⿱幺長刂心 (traditional)
⿺‌辶⿳穴⿰月⿰⿲⿱幺长⿱言马⿱幺长刂心 (simplified)

In Adobe's Source Han Sans and Source Han Serif font these IDS sequences do not display as IDS sequences, but display the actual glyphs for the character.[6][7]

Unicode

After an email discussion with Lee Collins, John Jenkins submitted an application of "" in 2006.[8] However, its IDS was too long at the time[9] and "radical 心 (heart)" is missing from the character shape.[10]

Ming Fan (范銘)[11] 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.[12]

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).[13] For UTC-01312, "radical 刂 (knife)" has become "radical 戈 (dagger-axe)" in the academic paper used as evidence.[14] Members of the Unicode Consortium supported the character shape.[15] Toshiya Suzuki suggested adding a new block ("CJK Complex Ideographic Symbols"), set "" as a basic shape, unify the variation and even admit "" as a variant of the character.[16][17]

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.[18] The corresponding Unicode characters are:

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

Mnemonics
Animated GIF showing the stroke order of the Traditional character for biáng according to the mnemonic, not according to the principles of stroke order.

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

One version runs as follows:

Traditional
Chinese		Simplified
Chinese		PinyinEnglish translation
一點上了天一点上了天Yīdiǎn shàngle tiānApex (丶) rising up to the sky,
黃河兩道彎黄河两道弯Huáng Hé liǎng dào wānOver Two bends (冖) by Yellow River's side.
八字大張口八字大张口Bāzì dà zhāngkǒuCharacter "Eight"'s (八) opening wide,
言字往進走言字往进走Yán zì wǎng jìn zǒu"Speech" (言) enters inside.
你一扭 我一扭你一扭 我一扭Nǐ yī niǔ, wǒ yī niǔYou twist, I twist too, (幺 'tiny')
你一長 我一長你一长 我一长Nǐ yī zhǎng, wǒ yī zhǎngyou grow, I grow (長) with you,
當中加個馬大王当中加个马大王Dāngzhōng jiā gè mǎ dàwángInside, a horse (馬) king will rule.
心字底心字底Xīn zì dǐ"Heart" (心) down below,
月字旁月字旁Yuè zì páng"Moon" (月) by the side,
留個鈎搭掛麻糖留个钩搭挂麻糖Liú ge gōu dā guà má tangLeave a hook (刂 'knife') for Matang (Mahua, Fried Dough Twist) to hang low,
坐着車車逛咸陽坐着车车逛咸阳Zuòzhe chēchē guàng XiányángOn our carriage, to Xianyang we'll ride (radical: 辶 'walk').

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
A Xi'an biangbiangmian restaurant. The Traditional character for biáng is combined with the Simplified character for miàn.

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.

One hypothesis is that there was no such character or meaning for this word in the beginning, and the word actually came from the sound people make from chewing the noodles, "biang biang biang".

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.[19]

According to an article on China Daily, the word "biang" actually refers to the sound made by the chef when he creates the noodles by pulling the dough and slapping it on the table.[20]

Variants
Biángbiángmiàn in Traditional characters. With exception of the fourth and fifth strokes, the variant of biáng used is the same as the third variant on the list.

Seventeen variants of the Traditional character for biáng, having between 56 and 70[Note 2] strokes:

Notes
  1. The radical 辶 has only three strokes instead of four according to Mainland Chinese rules, 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 rules, 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. "A taste of Xi'an in North London". Fuchsia Dunlop. Retrieved 2016-06-14.
  2. "What is the Most Complex Chinese Character?". Mental Floss. Retrieved 2016-06-14.
  3. "CJK Unified Ideographs Extension G" (PDF). Unicode. 11 March 2020. p. 49⁄63.
  4. UTC Character Submission for 2015 by the Unicode Consortium
  5. See Unicode Technical Report #45 and associated data File, UTC-00791. The file references this Wikipedia article as a primary source and a reason for inclusion.
  6. Lunde, Ken (April 8, 2017), "Designing & Implementing Biáng", CJK Type Blog, Adobe, retrieved December 30, 2017
  7. Lunde, Ken (November 19, 2018), Source Han Sans Version 2.000 (PDF), Adobe, retrieved November 21, 2018
  8. John Jenkins: Proposed UTC C2 Submission. L2/06-364.
  9. Marnen Laibow-Koser: Re:Composition of not included Chinese characters.
  10. Pointed out by Satoshi Yamamoto, see CJK Ext. E 6.0. Editorial Group. IRG N1597.
  11. Eiso Chan: My answer of "How to pronounce 'biáng'" at Zhihu，2016-12-30.
  12. Unicode Consortium: IRG N2091R, 2015-11-02.
  13. The character shape in the dictionary is .
  14. The character shape in the paper is .
  15. Japan Review on IRG Working Set 2015 ver 2.0 (IRGN2155: p.314-456), 2016-08-19.
  16. Toshiya Suzuki: Proposal to add new block "CJK Complex Ideographic Symbols" (WG2 N4796), 2017-04-01
  17. Eiso Chan: Should we need to create a new block for ideographic characters?, 2017-05-04.
  18. "CJK Unified Ideographs Extension G" (PDF). Unicode. 11 March 2020. p. 49.
  19. Beck, Stewart Lee. "The Hardest Chinese Character". Retrieved 2016-06-14.
  20. "Biangbiang Shaanxi street food". China Daily. Retrieved 19 November 2012.

See also
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