"Q" as a Sinogram and a Sinitic morpheme

Jules Quartly (appropriate surname!) has an informative article on this subject in Taiwan Business TOPICS, "The True Story of Q" (1/21/20) — a takeoff from the most famous Chinese short story of the 20th century, "The True Story of Ah Q" (Ā Q Zhèngzhuàn 阿Q正傳 /  阿Q正传; serialized 12/4/21-2/12/22, published 1923).  Toward the end of his article, Quartly quotes extensively from this post of mine:  "Is Q a Chinese Character?" (4/15/10).  In the rest of the article, however, he offers a panoply of his own and others' insights about just what "Q" signifies as a mouthfeel in Taiwan.

Here follow some delicious, selected passages from Quartly's article:

A decade or so ago, the restaurant reviews by local writers in the Taiwan newspaper where I was features editor often dwelt at great length on the chewy nature of certain dishes.

To vary the wording, the reviewers resorted to ever more tortuous ways to describe the texture of the delicacy in question. Among the adjectives plucked from the pages of Roget's Thesaurus were "leathery," "gristly," and "globular" – terms that reviewers in Western publications might only apply with malice aforethought.

As a then relatively recent arrival in Taiwan, I sensed that something was clearly going on that I was sadly ignorant about. When I asked the authors about their perceived need to describe the essential "bounciness" or "springiness" of food in such detail, they responded that it was all about "Q" – the degree of chewiness of a given food and how it feels against the teeth and tongue.

Q is considered one of the keys to good food in Taiwan, on a par with taste, color, and consistency. Given how frequently Q is referred to on menus and in general conversation, it appears that Taiwanese appreciate mouthfeel or texture more than most people. The Italians do have al dente, which literally means "to the tooth" and describes pasta or rice that is slightly undercooked, but it's not easy to find other examples.

…

Making his own attempt to explain Q, journalist George Liao says: "In Taiwanese, when we say something is very 'Q,' we mean it tastes good-chewy, which is usually associated with being delicious. Some snacks have to be chewy to be delicious, and when that quality comes out, we usually praise the food by saying it's very Q. Sometimes it also means sticky, as some Chinese or Taiwanese foods need to be sticky to be delicious, such as mochi" (the Japanese-style confectionery made with glutinous rice).

…

So, is Q now a Chinese character? Robert Matthews, a former university instructor, alludes to a rare Chinese character, 飲蚯, pronounced kiu in Mandarin. It is a fusion of the characters yin (drink, 飲) and qiu (sip, 蚯)… [VHM:  Question to the assembled readership — is that in Unicode or otherwise available online?]

In reply to Quartly's question, there's no doubt that Q has been part of the Chinese writing system for at least nearly a century.

For me, the quintessential "Q" texture is that of the chewy, round balls in boba (also known as pearl milk tea or bubble milk tea; zhēnzhū nǎichá 珍珠奶茶, bōbà nǎichá 波霸奶茶) that you swish around in your mouth before biting them and slurpily swallowing them down.  One of my favorite desserts, which I loved long before I started drinking bubble tea (fairly recently), is tapioca the way my sister Heidi and I prepare it — with meringue generously folded in and decadently rich whipped cream piled on top served with sugared cut strawberries.  Unfortunately, for it to be super good, you need big pearl tapioca, and with boba having taken the world by storm, it has become increasingly difficult to find big pearl tapioca. (I realize that it is still available through specialized sources, but you have to try harder to get it than in the past.)

 

Selected readings

"cactus wawa: the strange tale of a strange character" (11/1/14)

"Cactus Wawa revisited " (4/24/16)

"Bubble tea blooper " (9/28/17)

[h.t. John Rohsenow]