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An English Written Chinese Classical Couplet

Categories: East Asia, China, Arts & Culture, Humor, Language, Politics

Chinese couplet is a kind of classical poetry written in two lines, which are corresponding to each other in length as well as syntactic and semantic properties. As the couplet can be pasted to the entrance of a house, sometimes a short extra line, horizontal line to be pasted in and between the two long lines, is added as a commentary to the couplet. A twitter @liguangyucn spotted an English written Chinese couplet online and retweeted it in his account:

First line: Subway, railway, highway, way way to die
[note: a comment on road safety: subway, railway and highway are leading to death]
Second line: Officer, announcer, professor, sir sir to lie
[note: a comment of people's integrity: officer, announcer and professor are all liars]
Horizontal line: Welcome to China