Lao Fu Zi means "Old Master", but why is he called Old Master "Q" in English?


Where does the "Q" come from?

When I first began to read Lao Fu Zi more than 10 years ago I knew no chinese at all. I still know very little and am completely dependent on the dictionary. Back then I was in a band that played a lot of shows in San Francisco and my best friend, our guitarist, worked at a liquor store in North Beach. From there, to get back down to Market St. to take the Metro or BART one walked down Stockton St.. This brings you right through Chinatown. My buddy bought this comic there because it looked trippy. It was the funniest comic I've ever read. I didn't need to know Chinese to understand it. Most of the strips don't have dialog and those that do are still understandable. You can guess what they are talking about from the storyline of the strip. We liked it so much we used the strips for the posters we made to advertise or shows.

But we never knew the name of the main character until a friend who also read Lao Fu Zi told us his name was Old Master Q. We should have been able to find this out for ourselves because the name is in the front cover of all the comic books, but we never looked there. Times change, things go on. Our band broke up, my friend moved to Michigan and got married and had a bunch of kids. I moved to another town to go to school. After I finished school I got a job in the LA area. My family was from the San Gabriel Valley, but we'd moved to the San Francisco Bay Area when I was still in elementary school. In a way I was going home when I took the job in LA, but it was a very unfamiliar home.

In LA my boss was from Taiwan and everyone where I worked was from Mainland or Taiwan except for one other guy. I began to pick up some Chinese and all my friends were Chinese. After a couple years I met the woman who'd become my wife (you can see her wedding portrait on my home page. Those in the know can probably guess the incredibly overpriced studio studio where it was taken.) When I was going out with my wife before we were married, one day we went to a bookstore and I saw the Lao Fu Zi comic. It was 10 years since I'd seen it and it was like seeing a long lost friend. I bought it and found it as funny and fantastic as ever. I began collecting them. I also sent copies to my old buddy in Michigan.

So now I knew the real name of Lao Fu Zi because I knew some Chinese and had myriad translators at hand if I didn't know a word. But, still, the question remained: why "Q"?

Back Lao Fu Zi picture page.

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