A dragon is your constipated friend
Last night we popped out to meet a couple of friends, one of whom is Malaysian. He showed us a photo of a handwritten poster from the lunar new year celebrations in Malaysia, showing the twelve 生肖, the animals symbolising the Chinese zodiac.
We didn't recognise one of the scrawls. He replied that it's the dragon.
Then I realised I'd never seen the simplified character for dragon before:
This is the regal-looking "traditional" version we are used to:
I joked to a local friend just now that the simplified version reminds me of a combination of friend (友) and constipated (秘).
Dragon: Your constipated friend.
Just one story of how, in my opinion, many of the traditional Chinese characters were mutilated in the last century. One of the more well-known ones is where the heart (心) was removed from love (愛), and replaced with the same 友 as above, to form a version more akin to friendship (爱). How can there be love with no heart?