fish of the day

ever wonder why lots of Taiwan's crockery has pictures of fish on it?

it's because "fish" (魚, yu2) sounds the same as "surplus" (餘, yu2), so the picture carries the same wish as the New Year greeting 年年有魚 (nian2-nian2 you3 yu2), which means "every year have a fish" but is a pun for "every year have more food than you need".

in fact, some linguist-anthropology-paleography types suggest that rather than "fish" sounding like "surplus", the opposite is true: surplus sounds like fish.

their explanation is that fish was THE original surplus, that when hunting or gathering people stopped when they had enough to eat, but with fishing sometimes the nets came up empty, but sometimes they produced more than people needed for their immediate needs.

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