A poem by Canaan Morse

Rain, rain start to fall,

wash the window-studded walls.

Through the sewers thread your way,

flush the oil out to sea.

My teacher broke this down for us in class once but I forgot what it meant until I asked a waiter about it after seeing it on a fat golden pig. It’s a combination of the chengyu 招财进宝 (zhāo cái jìn bǎo, 招財進寶 in traditional characters), used to wish people wealth and prosperity.

We don't generally post news on the Anthill, as it's designed for narrative writing and there are too many China news aggregators anyway. But this is breaking news I discovered myself and have to share: the municipal authorities for the Gulou area of central Beijing have, as of midnight last night, made riding fixed gear bicycles in the area against the law.

A poem from Shanghai, by Rob Schackne

Every time I go across the river

My taxi passes a tiny place called

The Museum of Locks, between

Two hapless shops in Fuxing Lu

Editor’s note: We’re introducing a new feature on the Anthill, in collaboration with Sam Duncan’s blog “Things I Notice While Studying Chinese” (汉语小发现). Every week, Sam will post a language titbit, from an unusual idiom (chengyu) to a netizen-invented character, as one-off quick fixes in between our longer posts. Here’s his latest discovery to kick things off:

In English we say “green with envy” which comes from Shakespeare’s green-eyed monster I guess, but in Chinese people say 眼红 (yǎn hóng), red eyes, to express envy or jealousy ...