For St. Patrick's Day, the #ManicPunday theme is Green.

1. Laura Powell ‏@dailysuitcase  16 Mar 2015

   The shy leprechaun may have Asparagus Syndrome. #SaintPatricksDay #ManicPunday

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   Jay Pee 1975 ‏@jez_put  16 Mar 2015

   Heard stevie wonders new song ? I just kaled to say I love you. #ManicPunday

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6. Laurie A. Conley ‏@Busydrawing  16 Mar 2015

   Although I love reading puns, I usually leaf punning to the pros. I'm not frond of it. #ManicPunday #green

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1. Laura Del Rosso ‏@lauradelrosso  16 Mar 2015

   Sorry to miss #manicpunday @dailysuitcase. Mondays are chard. On a kale of 1-10, it's a 1. Next thyme. #travel #puns #dailysuitcase

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3.  Peter Schlesinger liked

   Gary Cordery ‏@gaz_cordery  16 Mar 2015

   Wanted to do a pun for #ManicPunday on the topic all things green but I can't Kermit to it....

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4.  Walter Igor and 2 others follow

   Puncroaker ‏@Puncroaker  16 Mar 2015

   Although best known for his operas, he actually preferred Latino dance music, going by the name Salsa Verdi. #ManicPunday

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 Nigel Pearson liked

Jay Pee 1975 ‏@jez_put  16 Mar 2015

What time does this spinach ? #ManicPunday

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Top 9 Posts: The Runner-Ups

I've written hundreds of posts during the five years Daily Suitcase has been in existence. But certain topics always seem to resonate with my dear readers. They include accounts of exotic excursions; my infatuation with Idaho;  my proclivity for punning; and rants against hackneyed travel writing. But by far the most popular post ever...and this is the naked truth...is the tale of going au naturel at a German spa.

But that's just a tease, because I am going to do my Top 9 countdown in reverse, in threesomes. Today, you get numbers seven, eight, and nine.

9. A Trans-Siberian Postscript: An account of  my adventures on the Russian rails.

Riding the Trans-Siberian Route
Along the Shores of Lake Baikal

Me in Front of the World's Largest
Lenin Head in Ulan Ude

St. Basil's Cathedral, Moscow

8. It's Just Another Manic Punday: Although I have recently started a #ManicPunday gabfest on Twitter (every other Monday from 12:30-1:00 PM EST....please join in), this success of this early quip of the same name astounds me. If you don't feel like clicking the link, below is the post in its entirety. 

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I have been staying at the Peabody Hotel in Orlando the past few days for a speaking gig at a travel industry conference. Inspired by the ducks that march through the lobby here on a daily basis, I present this week's Punday entry. Hope it quacks you up.

A duck walks into a bar.

He orders a Wild Turkey.

He asks the wader to put it on his bill.

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7. Go Directly to Jail:: I've been collecting international versions of Monopoly for 25 years. I have nearly 50 boards, but.those bought in Communist countries are my pride and joy. Yes, I have authentic 1980s versions of the game that celebrates capitalism at its most unscrupulous from Yugoslavia, Poland, and Romania. This post recounts tales of the chance discoveries.

One of Two Games Purchased
in Romania. Note the presidential
caricatures on the money.

In the next post, we shall move up the food chain. Expect stories from the Spud State 

and my beefs with bad travel writing.

To be continued ...

China’s Mandarins Shanghai The Pun

I’m appalled. China has banned puns. This is a crying shang. It has me seeing red. And almost as offensive is that, in reporting this news, many writers (clearly those not practiced at the fine art) have dubbed punning “the lowest form of humor.” 
Foo-ey, I say.

双关语

The Forbidden City

Those critics are simply noodles. Nonetheless, today I am opting to focus my ire on the Chinese mandarins who made the pun a forbidden ditty. Deng it, how could 1.357 billion people not like puns? Well, it turns out they do, and that has created a sticky pun problem.

Puns are actually considered an important feature of Chinese culture. Puns are ubiquitous in Chinese, because the language is not wonton for homophones. It’s all in the way the Chinese write words from characters. Substituting one character for another can alter the meaning of a phrase while hardly changing the sound.

IMO, China's Next Generation
is being pun-ished by this new ruling

At any rate, China’s State Administration for Press, Publication, Radio, Film and Television issued an order in November saying wordplay has no place in broadcasting and advertising.  While spearing a chopstick through the heart of punditry, the order conceded that “idioms are one of the great features of the Chinese language and contain profound cultural heritage and historical resources and great aesthetic, ideological and moral values.” Nonetheless, the statement says improper exploitation of words may lead to cultural and linguistic chaos. and could harm the nation’s young people. Certainly, the government doesn't want to have a han in that happening.

Here’s my slant. Clearly, the Chinese government is not panda’ing to its pun-crazed public here. In fact, yuan-a bet that this great wall has been erected as a form of censorship? Indeed, puns and wordplay are just one mao way the Chinese work around censorship in the Internet age. The Chinese use puns and wordplay to duck censorship software, designed to catch and embargo obscene or politically sensitive words. So, an entirely new lexicon of puns has been developed for online discussion of sensitive topics. As a result, the amount of online punning is one way to gauge the tempura-ture of public opinion.

I am just glad I do not have to wok a mile in the shoes of a Chinese writer. For if I were not able to employ the venerable pun, I might have to be peking into another line of work.

But No Puns Allowed