Punning Pronouns for Finance
I’ve been seeing these ads in Shanghai recently:
![财富在这「理」](https://live.staticflickr.com/65535/50343230683_81c0e06358_h.jpg)
The key line is this one:
财富在这「理」
Here you have a pun on the word 这里 (“here”), substituting 理 for 里. They sound very similar.
![财富在这「理」](https://live.staticflickr.com/65535/50344071047_e6f5aa192b_h.jpg)
So the punned sentence sounds like it’s saying “wealth is here” (a basic 在 sentence), but if you read the characters, it’s saying, “wealth is managed here,” using 在 to specify location. This is because 理 can mean “manage,” as in the phrase “理财” (“to manage wealth,” or “wealth management”).
But here’s another thing you might not know: in informal Chinese, 这 can stand in for 这里 or 这儿. (Same for 那 and 那里/那儿, but not so much 哪.)
![财富在这「理」](https://live.staticflickr.com/65535/50343230753_8fb667abdd_h.jpg)
That’s sort of an intermediate grammar point, and not super common. If you’re still working on basic question words, be sure to check out the Chinese Grammar Wiki’s article: Placement of Question Words.