Talk:Zhajiang mian

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Contents 1 Merge with Jajangmyeon 2 A grammatical issue 3 Move 3.1 Google search 4 Difference 5 Box 6 pinyin "standard" vs alternate pronunciations 7 additional condiments

[edit] Merge with Jajangmyeon

I'd like to propose merging Zhajiang mian into Jajangmyeon, or vice-versa. I can't say I'm certain which, and I'll admit this is based on anecdotal reasons, but I think some might find my reason interesting. There's an interesting cultural story behind this dish. My understanding is that in the early 20th century, there was a large Chinese community in the Korean peninsula, and many of these Chinese families made their living as restaurant owners. Jajangmyeon, developed locally, was a popular dish at these restaurants. It came to a point where the Korean authorities, upon doing some economic exercises, determined that the Chinese living on the peninsula were responsible for a highly disproportionate percentage of the nation's domestic product. The Koreans were apparently unhappy to discover this, and as a means of "remedying" the situation, they imposed a Jajangmyeon tax! This drove away quite a bit of Chinese business.

What followed was, as I understand it, a somewhat comical cultural reversal. The Koreans, either resentful of the Chinese business, or merely aware that Jajangmyeon was only available at Chinese restaurants, considered it to be a Chinese dish. The Chinese, on the other hand, having brought the dish back with them to Shandong province (the Chinese peninsula just across the water) when the Jajangmyeon tax became unbearable, considered it a Korean dish! So, as the story was told to me, Jajangmyeon or Zhajiang mian is both Korean and Chinese, the differences between the present-day national dishes being minimal.

Obviously it would be good to have some written citations to back up this oral history, and I'm guilty for not providing this. But my personal experience is that Zhajiang mian at Chinese restaurants, and Jajangmyeon at Korean restaurants, is actually pretty much indistinguishable. So, without getting into the level of depth I have here, I believe it's correct to say that the two dishes don't really warrant individual pages. Beyond that, I think it would be more descriptive and informative to readers, to have both on the same page.

So, anybody interested in the topic, what do you think?

Cheers, dr 04:59, 18 March 2006 (UTC)

I'm not so sure. It looks like the Chinese recipe is far sweeter than the Korean version and doesn't necessarily have the zucchini, either. Salanth 04:23, 7 August 2006 (UTC)

[edit] A grammatical issue

Regardless of whether the literal translation or phonetic translation should be use for "Zhajiang mian", is it more grammatically correct to say "fried sauced noodle". By adding a letter "d", the noun "sauce" is changed to an adjective. May those who are good at linguistics comment on this? :-) - Alanmak 16:21, 12 January 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Move

The English name is not generally known or used; I propose moving to "Zhajiang mian." Badagnani 09:18, 27 December 2005 (UTC)

Evidence?—jiy (talk) 03:10, 28 December 2005 (UTC)

[edit] Google search

• 480 English pages for "zha jiang mian" -wikipedia
• 296 English pages for "zhajiangmian" -wikipedia
• 111 English pages for "fried sauce noodles" -wikipedia
• 79 English pages for "zhajiang mian" -wikipedia

The use English guideline says:

If there is no commonly used English name, use an accepted transliteration of the name in the original language. Latin-alphabet languages, like Spanish or French, should need no transliteration, but Chinese names can use Pinyin, for example.

It seems clear that this case applies here so the problem is to find the most suitable transliteration. Knowing no Chinese I will defer to those who do. - Haukur 15:29, 28 December 2005 (UTC)

I'd vote to keep them different despite the same name. Jajangmyeon has become something indubitably *Korean* and as such deserves its own section. Korea is pretty much the only place on earth where the Chinese restaurants are not actually run by Chinese, after all... Willhawkes 13:32, 24 April 2006 (UTC)

Zhajiang is the name of the sauce, mian basically refers to noodles. Therefore it seems perfectly reasonable to accept a name which also obeys the rules of pinyin too. Since zhajiang is a complete word in itself which modifies mian, zhajiang mian seems the best choice, despide the 79 English pages cited above. For "zha jiang mian" this would be non-standard pinyin. 84.67.160.16 16:22, 20 March 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Difference

I would like to point out that Korean JJM tend to focus more on the beans, while Taiwanese ZJM seems to focus more on the meat. Therefore, Korean JJM tend to be blacker than the Taiwanese counterpart.

[edit] Box

That box that was just added is horribly unattractive. Can something be done about this? Badagnani 08:30, 16 October 2006 (UTC)

[edit] pinyin "standard" vs alternate pronunciations

in northern china, including beijing, 炸 is usually pronounced zhá (2nd tone) when referring to (fried) food items. the 4th tone zhà is used for the sense "blow up, explosion". this is considered "standard" mandarin and is usually listed as such in most dictionaries.

i also noticed that zhàjiàng miàn redirects here. perhaps then, a zhájiàng miàn should be created to redirect here?

[edit] additional condiments

fresh soybeans are a commonly offered condiment as well --—The preceding unsigned comment was added by 71.232.100.151 (talk • contribs).