I know what General Tso’s Chicken is. I even know who General Tso was.
I don’t know what’s going on here, though…
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Colonel Chen is sitting down and ordering. General Tso is walking by.
Probably best not to loudly order something that could be interpreted as calling General Tso a chicken…
Ah, got it.
That’s why I posted this in the afternoon rather than at midnight: I figured it would be something simple like that.
General Tso’s ears are sharp enough to hear an apostrophe, but he can’t tell what grammatical function it is intended to serve.
I thought the General had a fondness for his chicken, but yeah, this makes more sense. :)
Re: Bill’s title. I don’t find myself hungry an hour after eating Chinese food. I also haven’t even heard the claim that this happens to other people in the last decade or two.
I did a quick search to find out (1) if this really happens to people, and if so, why (2) why it doesn’t happen to me and (3) whether the claim is really on the decline in the last couple of decades. The explanations for the first two were inconclusive and unsatisfying, but the claim does appear to be on the decline.
If you eat until you’re no longer hungry, it takes a while to be hungry again. If you eat until you’re stuffed, it doesn’t take long until you notice you’re no longer stuffed, and it’s easy to mistake that for hunger. If you don’t eat Chinese food until you’re stuffed, you won’t get hungry an hour later.
Possibly the “hungry an hour later” cliché (did this need a Geezer tag?) was somehow related to MSG?
I was thinking that he had accidentally ordered his superior’s dinner for himself for a few hours before Folly’s more likely and funnier explanation ever occurred to me.
My guess about “hungry an hour later” is that, decades ago, Americans eating Chinese food would fill up on simple carbs like white rice, and de-emphasize protein and vegetables than they were used to. Just comparing the stereotypical “American” meal of forty years ago to the stereotypical Chinese-American food meal, if the American customer was filling up on more rice and noodles than they otherwise would, those digest quickly and leave you hungry again.
Why wouldn’t this happen with Italian food? Because Italian-American “red checked tablecloth” meals were very cheese-heavy as well as carb heavy, which would leave you fuller longer.
Today, maybe, people eating Chinese-American food eat a more rational balance of rice/noodles with meat and vegetables, so don’t get the “simple carbs went away fast” thing as much?
This is all speculation on my part, of course.
@Ryan, the (apocryphal) story about the historical General Tso is, indeed, about his eating chicken.
Ian’s explanation of the hungry-again symdrome accords with what I’ve also heard.
Not only can the General hear an apostrophe, he is able to parse an alternate syntax … in English!
In Comic Strip Reality, people can even hear differences between homophones (words that sound identical but have different meanings and spellings)
Okay, here’s a version I probably just laughed at in the sixties, though what is now offensive on a nationality basis was just mildly so then. “They just opened a German-Chinese restaurant. An hour later, you’re hungry for power.”
@ Mitch4 – Sure, it’s anachronistic now, but I still laughed.
@ Mitch 4: For what it’s worth, as far as I know, that joke was famously written in the 1960’s by Dick Cavett.
If the guy is ordering “General Tso’s Chicken,” wouldn’t that mean that “General Tso’s Chicken” is already an established menu item? So why would Chen get in trouble if the general overheard him? It seems kind of paradoxical.
Maybe it’s because this is a specific Tso who happens to be a general, and doesn’t know about the Tso’s Chicken, which can be generally acquired at most restaurants?
Maybe this General Tso doesn’t know about the chicken dish because he doesn’t like Chinese food and never orders it? . “Hey, just because I’m Chinese myself and am drawn as some centuries-ago warlord figure, don’t stereotype me! I like to explore the cusine options of many nations and ethnic groups, both good and bad, in the hopes of broadening my personal culinary horizons! Right now, for instance, I think I’m in the mood for Taco Bell! But only ironically, of course!”
I have a friend who did something similar as a teen. He was in a Cuban restaurant (in Florida, on a school trip where you learn about state history), and looking over the limited menu choices given to the group, rather loudly remarked “Man, I hate Cubans!” Now, he meant Cuban sandwiches, but… He realized how it sounded almost immediately, and apparently, he looked embarrassed enough that no one called him on it.
I was confused with this cartoon until I read Folly’s explanation.
I wrongly thought that the guy in the foreground was Colonel Chen, and had wished he ordered the beef and broccoli, because, for some reason, some guy sitting down (maybe General Tso?) ordered a meal possibly named after himself. Maybe by ordering the beef and broccoli, it would be named after him? (“Colonel Chen’s Beef”, perhaps.)
So… Folly’s explanation makes much more sense than mine did.
One of my open mike friends has this funny song that might relate to the comic. Up here we call it General Gao chicken.
The song wouldn’t work very well for General Tso, as that was a real person. Or at least the old spelling for a real person.
“Gao” and “Tso” are probably equally good (or bad) approximations to 左 (modern pinyin spelling of “Zuo”).
I don’t don’t know about that. The different orthographies for spelling Chinese names doesn’t mean you can use anything. That was a historical person. The song says you won’t find “General Gao” in the history books. You will find Tso. At least in Wikipedia.
What I mean is that, pronunciation-wise, they’re all about the same in distance. The normal English pronunciation of “Tso” sounds nothing to me like the Chinese pronunciation of 左. “Gao” doesn’t sound like 左 either, but it’s not significantly farther away, either. (I agree you can’t spell the person’s name however you want. But the chicken dish I guess you have more freedom what to call it.)
Actually in Wikipedia you’ll get redirected to Zuo Zongtang. Closer to Susan Sontag than any spelling mentioned here.
From MAD Magazine circa 1960: “Learn a lesson from Confucius … and an hour later you’re stupid again.”
I was wondering what happened to Li Po — he wasn’t listed anymore as one of the poets behind the words adapted into “Das Lied von der Erde” in the texts I was reading. Turns out that is no longer the favored form for writing his name. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Li_Bai
It’s not just Chinese names. It’s said of Goethe’s name that half of all English speakers pronounce it to rhyme with “both” and the other half pronounce it to rhyme with “dirty”.
Winter Wallaby, you have puzzled me. Whether you pronounce 左 as ‘tso’, or ‘dzo’, or ‘dzwo’ with the vowel of ‘gold’, I don’t see how it can sound even remotely like ‘Gao’, which rhymes with ‘now’. Are you using a non-Mandarin reading?
Oh hell, nobody can even pronounce MY name.
@ MiB – Using the “r” sound is a cheap substitute for the “Umlaut“, but I suppose it’s understandable for people can’t (or won’t) learn the way a real “ö” sounds(*). It’s not the hardest German sound to master (the “ü” and “ich” sounds are much trickier), but it is by no means simple.
P.S. (*) – The name was originally spelled “Göthe“, the spelling was changed by his grandfather. Many Americans may have never heard it spoken correctly, but if you don’t want to tackle the vowel, I think “ghohta” would be a more acceptable approximate pronunciation for “Goethe“.
BY kel?
Treesong: I agree that 左 doesn’t sound at all like “Gao.” What I meant was that it doesn’t sound at all like “Tso,” as I usually hear it pronounced, so that one very distant pronunciation seems as good as another.
I thought the reason that one was hungry again was the the dishes tended to be heavier on vegetables than meat. Now the dishes, at least at the places we go to, are heavier on meat than used to be, as well people eat more vegetables than before. (Well, my dad said the more veg, less meat was why people said that.)
Ianosmond – my parents would push the main dishes and limit how much rice we ate – “Meat and vegetables are good for you. Rice is cheap and just filler.”
Comics I Don't Understand 
Colonel Chen is sitting down and ordering. General Tso is walking by.
Probably best not to loudly order something that could be interpreted as calling General Tso a chicken…
Ah, got it.
That’s why I posted this in the afternoon rather than at midnight: I figured it would be something simple like that.
General Tso’s ears are sharp enough to hear an apostrophe, but he can’t tell what grammatical function it is intended to serve.
I thought the General had a fondness for his chicken, but yeah, this makes more sense. :)
Re: Bill’s title. I don’t find myself hungry an hour after eating Chinese food. I also haven’t even heard the claim that this happens to other people in the last decade or two.
I did a quick search to find out (1) if this really happens to people, and if so, why (2) why it doesn’t happen to me and (3) whether the claim is really on the decline in the last couple of decades. The explanations for the first two were inconclusive and unsatisfying, but the claim does appear to be on the decline.
If you eat until you’re no longer hungry, it takes a while to be hungry again. If you eat until you’re stuffed, it doesn’t take long until you notice you’re no longer stuffed, and it’s easy to mistake that for hunger. If you don’t eat Chinese food until you’re stuffed, you won’t get hungry an hour later.
Possibly the “hungry an hour later” cliché (did this need a Geezer tag?) was somehow related to MSG?
I was thinking that he had accidentally ordered his superior’s dinner for himself for a few hours before Folly’s more likely and funnier explanation ever occurred to me.
My guess about “hungry an hour later” is that, decades ago, Americans eating Chinese food would fill up on simple carbs like white rice, and de-emphasize protein and vegetables than they were used to. Just comparing the stereotypical “American” meal of forty years ago to the stereotypical Chinese-American food meal, if the American customer was filling up on more rice and noodles than they otherwise would, those digest quickly and leave you hungry again.
Why wouldn’t this happen with Italian food? Because Italian-American “red checked tablecloth” meals were very cheese-heavy as well as carb heavy, which would leave you fuller longer.
Today, maybe, people eating Chinese-American food eat a more rational balance of rice/noodles with meat and vegetables, so don’t get the “simple carbs went away fast” thing as much?
This is all speculation on my part, of course.
@Ryan, the (apocryphal) story about the historical General Tso is, indeed, about his eating chicken.
Ian’s explanation of the hungry-again symdrome accords with what I’ve also heard.
Not only can the General hear an apostrophe, he is able to parse an alternate syntax … in English!
In Comic Strip Reality, people can even hear differences between homophones (words that sound identical but have different meanings and spellings)
Okay, here’s a version I probably just laughed at in the sixties, though what is now offensive on a nationality basis was just mildly so then. “They just opened a German-Chinese restaurant. An hour later, you’re hungry for power.”
@ Mitch4 – Sure, it’s anachronistic now, but I still laughed.
@ Mitch 4: For what it’s worth, as far as I know, that joke was famously written in the 1960’s by Dick Cavett.
If the guy is ordering “General Tso’s Chicken,” wouldn’t that mean that “General Tso’s Chicken” is already an established menu item? So why would Chen get in trouble if the general overheard him? It seems kind of paradoxical.
Maybe it’s because this is a specific Tso who happens to be a general, and doesn’t know about the Tso’s Chicken, which can be generally acquired at most restaurants?
Maybe this General Tso doesn’t know about the chicken dish because he doesn’t like Chinese food and never orders it? . “Hey, just because I’m Chinese myself and am drawn as some centuries-ago warlord figure, don’t stereotype me! I like to explore the cusine options of many nations and ethnic groups, both good and bad, in the hopes of broadening my personal culinary horizons! Right now, for instance, I think I’m in the mood for Taco Bell! But only ironically, of course!”
I have a friend who did something similar as a teen. He was in a Cuban restaurant (in Florida, on a school trip where you learn about state history), and looking over the limited menu choices given to the group, rather loudly remarked “Man, I hate Cubans!” Now, he meant Cuban sandwiches, but… He realized how it sounded almost immediately, and apparently, he looked embarrassed enough that no one called him on it.
I was confused with this cartoon until I read Folly’s explanation.
I wrongly thought that the guy in the foreground was Colonel Chen, and had wished he ordered the beef and broccoli, because, for some reason, some guy sitting down (maybe General Tso?) ordered a meal possibly named after himself. Maybe by ordering the beef and broccoli, it would be named after him? (“Colonel Chen’s Beef”, perhaps.)
So… Folly’s explanation makes much more sense than mine did.
One of my open mike friends has this funny song that might relate to the comic. Up here we call it General Gao chicken.
The song wouldn’t work very well for General Tso, as that was a real person. Or at least the old spelling for a real person.
“Gao” and “Tso” are probably equally good (or bad) approximations to 左 (modern pinyin spelling of “Zuo”).
I don’t don’t know about that. The different orthographies for spelling Chinese names doesn’t mean you can use anything. That was a historical person. The song says you won’t find “General Gao” in the history books. You will find Tso. At least in Wikipedia.
What I mean is that, pronunciation-wise, they’re all about the same in distance. The normal English pronunciation of “Tso” sounds nothing to me like the Chinese pronunciation of 左. “Gao” doesn’t sound like 左 either, but it’s not significantly farther away, either. (I agree you can’t spell the person’s name however you want. But the chicken dish I guess you have more freedom what to call it.)
Actually in Wikipedia you’ll get redirected to Zuo Zongtang. Closer to Susan Sontag than any spelling mentioned here.
From MAD Magazine circa 1960: “Learn a lesson from Confucius … and an hour later you’re stupid again.”
I was wondering what happened to Li Po — he wasn’t listed anymore as one of the poets behind the words adapted into “Das Lied von der Erde” in the texts I was reading. Turns out that is no longer the favored form for writing his name. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Li_Bai
It’s not just Chinese names. It’s said of Goethe’s name that half of all English speakers pronounce it to rhyme with “both” and the other half pronounce it to rhyme with “dirty”.
Winter Wallaby, you have puzzled me. Whether you pronounce 左 as ‘tso’, or ‘dzo’, or ‘dzwo’ with the vowel of ‘gold’, I don’t see how it can sound even remotely like ‘Gao’, which rhymes with ‘now’. Are you using a non-Mandarin reading?
Oh hell, nobody can even pronounce MY name.
@ MiB – Using the “r” sound is a cheap substitute for the “Umlaut“, but I suppose it’s understandable for people can’t (or won’t) learn the way a real “ö” sounds(*). It’s not the hardest German sound to master (the “ü” and “ich” sounds are much trickier), but it is by no means simple.
P.S. (*) – The name was originally spelled “Göthe“, the spelling was changed by his grandfather. Many Americans may have never heard it spoken correctly, but if you don’t want to tackle the vowel, I think “ghohta” would be a more acceptable approximate pronunciation for “Goethe“.
BY kel?
Treesong: I agree that 左 doesn’t sound at all like “Gao.” What I meant was that it doesn’t sound at all like “Tso,” as I usually hear it pronounced, so that one very distant pronunciation seems as good as another.
I thought the reason that one was hungry again was the the dishes tended to be heavier on vegetables than meat. Now the dishes, at least at the places we go to, are heavier on meat than used to be, as well people eat more vegetables than before. (Well, my dad said the more veg, less meat was why people said that.)
Ianosmond – my parents would push the main dishes and limit how much rice we ate – “Meat and vegetables are good for you. Rice is cheap and just filler.”