Chinese riddles stand in a tradition traceable to around the second century CE. They are partly noted for their use of elaborate visual puns on Chinese characters.
According to Timothy Wai Keung Chan, 'the Chinese riddle originates in far antiquity and reached its mature form around the Warring States Period (475–221 BCE)'. However, few riddles are attested in ancient Chinese literature, possibly because Chinese scholarship viewed the form as inappropriate to highbrow literature. The seminal literary historian Liu Xie, writing his Wenxin diaolong in the fifth century CE, situated the beginning of literary riddle-writing in Chinese in the Wei dynasty (220–65); he did not quote examples, but his dating is roughly consistent with the dating of one of the earliest surviving Chinese riddles, the 'Yellow Pongee Riddle'.
The posing and solving of riddles has long been an important part of the Chinese Lantern Festival; "the date of the origin of the lantern riddle is not definite, but according to Japanese writers it probably first became popular during the Northern Sung dynasty (960–1126), and became associated with the Feast of Lanterns during the 17th century".
Terminology
In modern Chinese, the standard word for 'riddle' is mi (謎, literally "to bewilder"). Riddles are spoken of as having a mian (面, "surface", the question component of the riddle), and a di (底, "base", the answer component). Ancient Chinese terms for 'riddle' include yin (讔) and sou (廋), which both mean "hidden".
Character riddles
The Chinese riddle-tradition makes much use of visual puns on Chinese characters. One example is the riddle "千 里 会 千 金"; these characters respectively mean 'thousand kilometre meet thousand gold'. The first stage of solving the riddle is verbal: In Chinese culture, "it is said that a good horse can run thousands of kilometers per day", so "千 里" (thousand kilometer) is resolved as "马" (horse). Meanwhile, because "a daughter is very important in the family", in Chinese culture it is possible to resolve "千 金" (thousand gold) as "女" (daughter). The second stage of solving the riddle is visual: combining the radical "马" (horse) with the radical "女" (daughter) produces the character "妈" (mother). Thus the answer to "thousand kilometres meet thousand gold" is "妈" (mother).
Precursors to character riddles
Although character riddles are not attested until around the second century CE, other enigmatic writings are attested from as early as the Han dynasty, which began in 206 BCE. These take the form of riddle-like prophecies. One example is
This cryptic text can be explained by combining the three characters of the first line into the single graph wei (巍), which is used interchangeably with (魏). Among its meanings is the state of Cao Wei; thus the text can be read as an enigma whose solution is that Cao Wei will overcome the Han dynasty and take over its empire.
Early character riddles
Reputedly the earliest surviving example of a character riddle is the 'Yellow Pongee Riddle', a famous text sometimes attributed to the second-century CE scholar Cai Yong, but at any rate thought to originate no later than the early fourth century. Its earliest surviving attestation is on a piece of pongee silk held in Liaoning Provincial Museum. The riddle runs 'Yellow silk, young maiden; maternal grandchild, shredded pickle in sauce, mortar' (黃絹幼婦外孫臼). The solution, first attested in the third-century Dianlüe (which does not, however, quote the riddle itself), is 'utterly wonderful, lovely, words!'. This is explained in the fifth-century Shishuo xinyu, which depicts the Eastern Han chancellor Cao Cao saying '"Yellow pongee" is colored silk (sesi 色絲), which, combined in one character, is jue 絕, "utterly". "Youthful wife" is young woman (shaonü 少女), which, combined in one character, is miao 妙, "wonderful". "Maternal grandson" is a daughter's son (nüzi 女子), which, combined in one character, is hao 好, "lovely". "Ground in a mortar" is to suffer hardship (shouxin 受辛), which, combined in one character, is ci 辭, "words". The whole thing thus means: "utterly wonderful, lovely words"'. Because the riddle was believed to have been composed as part of a memorial to a second-century girl called Cao E ('Maiden Cao'), character riddles of this kind have come to be known as 'Cao E Type' riddles (Cao E ge 格).