I saw a brand (Hup Seng) of sugar crackers with the Chinese character "乒乓大方卜". Though I recognise every character here, I do not see how these five characters make sense together. Does not "乒乓" mean "table tennis"? What does "大方卜" mean then?
1 Answer
「乒乓大方卜」 refers to a biscuit-product-line name cap ping pong (Malay for ping-pong brand, forming the 「乒乓」 part) and large square thin crackers (「大方薄餅乾」; 「餅乾」 is omitted and 「卜」 is a phonetic substitution of 「薄」, meaning thin, forming the 「大方卜」 part).
The Hup Seng (合成) company has three snack product lines, one of them named cap ping pong
On their website (https://www.hupseng.com/timeline), it says
1958
Hup Seng started research and development to bring biscuit lovers the best biscuit one can taste. Hence, we started producing the Ping-Pong crackers.
The name ‘Ping Pong’ derives from the success of China being the champion of the World Table Tennis Championship that year. The crackers have been widely loved by Malaysians, leaving a significant impact across generations
Google image search of 「卜餅乾」
Google image search of 「薄餅乾」
