Chinese riddles are closely connected with
the shape, pronunciation or meaning of Chinese characters. A line in the
fifth-century work of literary criticism Wenxin Diaolong (The
Literary Mind and the Carving of Dragons) by Liu Xie of the Northern Dynasties
Period (386-581) says, "Riddles, by mixing up words, create puzzlement." Riddles
based on the structure of Chinese characters appear first in a work of the fifth
century.
The practice of rewarding a prize to the
person who guesses a riddle correctly goes back at least as far as the Emperor
Gaozu of the Northern Wei Dynasty (386-534). He once raised his cup and
said:
Three, three across;
Three, three up;
Whoever guesses
Gets a gold cup.
The cup went to a minister who correctly
guessed the Chinese character the emperor was describing.
Since the Song Dynasty (960-1279), guessing
game of riddles has been popular and begun to take various forms. Because in the
Lantern Festival, riddles were put on lanterns for people to guess the answers,
riddles were also called lantern riddles. Nowadays, this custom is still
practiced in many places across China.
The relations between riddles and their
answers have many varieties. Some riddles are created according to grapheme or
meaning of a character and some, according to illusion of a character. Some
riddles make use of characters to guess proverbs, Xiehouyu (a two-part
allegorical saying) and so on.