The Hardest Chinese Character

The character biáng requires 62 total

strokes to write and contains a 馬
horse, 月 moon,⺉ knife and 心 heart
plus other radicals. Biáng doesn’t
exist in Modern Standard Mandarin
which only serves to increase the
mystery and intrigue surrounding the
character.

Among competitors for hardest

character, the traditional zhé
character meaning “verbose” or
“scary” contains four dragon radicals
and wins for cool factor, though its 64
strokes comprise four 16-stroke
copies. The nàng character which
means “having a stuffy nose” or
“speaking with a nasal twang” earns
points for complexity and for
somehow hanging onto its place in
the modern dictionary.

One version of the biang story shows

how even native Chinese speakers
can struggle writing the tougher
characters:

There was once a young Chinese

student wandering past a Shaanxi
noodle shop around lunchtime. He
heard people inside saying “biang!
biang!” and feeling hungry entered
to see for himself.

The student watched the cook pull

long strings of noodles and serve
fresh bowls to satisfied customers.
Excited, he asked for one. After
scarfing down the bowl, he realized
he had no money to pay the bill.
Sensing trouble with the cook, the
student thought fast.

“What do you call your noodles?”

asked the student.

“Biang biang mian,” replied the

cook.

“Do you know how to write the

character biang?”

The cook scratched his head,

having never thought about it.

“Then I’ll teach you how and my

noodles are free!”

Before the cook could protest, the

student grabbed some paper and
wrote a character so complicated
that everyone in the restaurant
burst into applause. Grinning at
being taken, the cook tore up the
student’s bill.

The cook’s noodles soon became

legendary and the word biang
came to mean the sound of
someone falling down and feeling
surprised, just like the first time
Homer Simpson bumped his head
and exclaimed, “Doh!”

In other common versions of the

story, biang comes from the sound of
a cook slapping noodles against a
table, or the chorus of people
munching the noodles. Less
important than the origin of the story
is what it says about the language
and culture.

Professor Victor Mair of the

University of Pennsylvania in his
Language Log post explains it well:

“For me, biang symbolizes the

difficulty of accommodating the full
fecundity of folk, popular, and
local/regional cultures and
languages within the bounds of the
standard writing system, which
enshrines the elite, high culture,
and now also the bourgeois, urban,
national culture. In other words,
biang is well-nigh bursting at the
sides of the scriptal and phonetic
boxes within which it is
constrained.”

Not bad for a character that likely

sprung from the tangled imagination
of a noodle cook centuries ago in
Shaanxi China. Biang is hands down
the hardest Chinese character. And
fortunately for us, every character we
encounter in the future will seem
easy by comparison.

Give it a try!

1. Try writing the biang character.

2. Take a picture of you and your
masterpiece.
3. Tweet it to us @ChinaSimplified
or upload it and tag us on
Facebook or Google+

biáng
62

w.chinasimplified.co

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Tags: Biang Chinese Characters

Join the discussion

50 Comments

Maylee
M
Reply
September 1, 2022 at 9:23 am

The lyrics to “生僻字” have a lot

of great characters, like 魃魈魁
鬾魑魅魍魉 and so on and so
forth

pixel
p
Reply
November 1, 2022 at 4:53
pm

Hi i’m Pixel and the

strokes that biang
has is only 58 and is
only
CONSIDEDERD the
hardest to write.
People actually say
that nang is the
hardest one to write
but i agree that
biang would be the
hardest to write.

Suzong of Tang
S
Reply
May 5, 2022 at 7:07 am

I also wrote with my own

hands.

Suzong of Tang
S
Reply
May 5, 2022 at 6:53 am

The real one Huang (172

Strokes).

Jack T
J
Reply
July 18, 2021 at 10:46 am

I’m very curious to know how

all these different characters
used inside this complex
character produces the sound
“biang? how do all these
different characters end up
making one word?

Maylee
M
Reply
September 1, 2022 at 9:25
am

I think you’ll know

the answer to your
question after
reading the article.

蔡恺俊
蔡
Reply
April 21, 2021 at 4:06 pm

我不明白

CCBBLQ
C
Reply
November 25, 2022 at 3:59
pm

how u not geti it

hayaa

rayner
r
Reply
April 18, 2021 at 8:07 am

lololololololololololololololololololololol
THE HARDEST CHINESE
WORLD IS BIANG!

☭ Reply

(@J_Rivera_Sierra)
June 26, 2021 at 4:04 am

At least China has a

millenial written
language.
English doesn’t
even have a written
language. It stole
Latin letters to write
the simplest
language in history.
So simple anybody
can speak (spit) it.

g
Reply

goldsmurf
August 4, 2021 at 12:48 pm

Good
points and
funny af

K
Reply

Khardankov
November 12, 2021 at 10:28
pm

This
doesn’t
make any
sense as
an
argument.
The
language
that
Oracle
Bone
Script (the
earliest
extant
version of
Chinese
characters)
represented
bore no
resemblance
to modern
Mandarin.
Thousands
of
languages
all over
the world
use a
version of
Latin
script –
how on
earth does
that mean
they “don’t
have a
written
language”?
English is
far from
the
simplest
language
in history
– it’s got
the
highest
vocabulary
of any
language
in the
world, at
well over
a million
words.
Mandarin
Chinese,
for one, is
a far
simpler
language
–
particularly
in
grammar,
where it’s
got one of
the
simplest
grammar
systems
of any
major
language
(though
this is far
from an
insult –
simplicity
in
languages
is a sign
of
refinement,
according
to
linguistic
science.)
I take it
from your
emojis
that you’re
from Latin
America. I
am sorry
that the
US has
ruthlessly
exploited
your
brethren
and
plundered
the wealth
of the
Spanish-
speaking
parts of
the
Western
hemisphere.
I’m a
socialist
too, as
any half-
decent
human
being
should be.
But don’t
take your
frustrations
out on the
English
language
– it’s not
at fault,
even if
some of
its
speakers
are.

s
Reply

someoneSomeone
yes
December 27, 2021 at 10:58
pm

more than
1000
Chinese
letters are
stolen
from
Japanese,
or
every
Japanese
letter was
stolen
from
Chinese?

R
Reply

Ruairi
January 8,
2022 at 8:23
pm

Japan
stole
the
Chinese
letters
as
they
actually
used
to
be
a
part
of
China
but
split
many
years
ago

F
Flaxton
January
13,
2022
at
10:16
am

S
Reply

Suzy
February 5,
2022 at 2:23
am

Uhm,
there’s
actually
some
Asian
languages
that
used
Chinese
and
incorporate
into
their
language.
For
example
Korean
and
Japanese,
most
of
the
characters
in
there
are
Chinese.
A
lot
of
Con$dentialité - Conditions

Japanese