Little dude pushing a drying rack off a table

M is new in China, but N's been here for a year. They had been planning to meet at a certain restaurant, and M wasn't sure he was going the right way, so he called N's cell phone. N whipped out his guidebook.

These are two highly educated and well respected men, and they are nothing if not resourceful. Well, it turns out that the street sign that M was looking at was only in Chinese, so they had no recourse but to try to describe the characters to each other.

So M says, ok, the third character in is a little dude pushing a drying rack off a table. N looks at his guidebook, and yes, sees the little dude pushing a drying rack off a table. Genius. M is going the right way. They meet up soon enough at the restaurant, and congratulate each other on their ingenuity.

We often repeat this story, because we all find it hillarious. Before I leave, I just have to see it for myself, so I ask N to get his guidebook, which he does and he finds the address of the restaurant. To my delight, the third character in is, indeed, a little dude pushing a drying rack off a table. Have a look for yourself:

So then I go to look up the character, to see exactly what it was, but I realize I already know the character; it's 路 lù.

路, my friends, is the word for "road." It's the one character that appears in almost every single address in China. In other words, 路 was really no help at all.

It's a good thing M was going the right way to begin with.