Rear View: Burger Off

Andrew Killeen | Jul 1, 2018 5:00 pm | Add a comment | 1801 reads

Rear View takes a jocular look at some of the experiences that make Beijing such a fun place to live (if they don't break you first).

Ah, burgers. Burgers, burgers, burgers.

There really is no subject more endlessly fascinating, is there? And having guzzled your way through a whole magazine dedicated to burgers, here you are at the last page, desperate for one last little fix of patty-related fun before you have to return to your dull, everyday world of love and music and beer and sunshine. Fear not! Rear View is here for you. We understand your raging burger needs, and will do literally anything to satisfy them. (Except that. We won’t do that. And we’re a little shocked that you even thought of it.)

Of course the absolutely hilarious thing about hamburgers is that they’re not made of ham. The name comes from the city of Hamburg in Germany, just as frankfurters come from Frankfurt and contain no actual Franks, and KFC Zinger Burgers get their name from the little town of Schnabelknorpelzingerburg, in Lower Saxony.

The German language is said to have a word for everything. Kummerspeck, for example, literally “grief bacon,” is the extra weight you put on through comfort eating after a breakup. Handschuhschneeballwerfer, meaning someone who wears gloves to a snowball fight, is a term for people who hurl abuse on the internet from behind the safety of anonymity. And unmöglicherscherzartikelpanikumwandlung is the word for that thing where a journalist is given a few days to write a humorous piece on an impossibly dull topic, and so shamelessly changes the subject halfway through the article.

Chinese manages these complex ideas more elegantly, through chengyu, those four-character phrases which pack whole stories and fables into a handful of syllables. Inspired by German ingenuity (like so many other Chinese products), we decided to suggest some new chengyu suitable to contemporary urban living.

早酒买憾 - Zǎojiǔmǎihàn
Waking up in the morning with a hangover, then remembering you bought something expensive and unnecessary on Taobao the night prior.

共车刹怖 - Gòngchēshābù
The feeling of terror experienced when you’ve just got up some speed on a Mobike and you realize neither of the brakes work.

吧门砖痛 - Bāménzhuāntòng
Arriving at your favorite bar to find the door has been bricked up.

错车梯怒 - Cuòchētīnù
Watching your train pull away while you’re stuck behind somebody occupying the entire width of the escalator and ignoring all your attempts to get past them.

志汉堡乐 - Zhìhànbǎolè
The sense of joy experienced on picking up your favorite magazine and discovering this issue is all about burgers.

This will be the last Rear View. We are scuttling off to a city which is less overcrowded, toxic, and pushy than Beijing – which, let’s face it, could be more or less anywhere. Thanks for all the messages of support, expressions of bewilderment, and snowballs hurled by gloved hands. Don't forget to vote in this year's Burger Cup and màn zǒu.