Q: That’s Guan Gong, right?
A: I think so.
Q: Why would doctors worship Guan Gong? Shouldn’t they be worshipping Bian Que, Hua Tuo, or Zhang Zhongjing?
A: We surgeons use knives too! 🔪
Okay, now the “Apple Guan Gong” poster from Small Town Remedy makes SO much more sense 😂 People immediately noticed that the apples seem to be arranged like Guan Gong.
And the joke actually has a few layers.
Guan Gong is instantly recognizable in Chinese culture by his red face and his association with a blade, so making a little “Guan Gong” figure out of red apples already works visually. And Liu Zhengliang is a surgeon, so yeah, he works with a knife too 😂
There’s also another interesting connection. Guan Yu is famously associated with the story of having poison scraped from the bone of his injured arm after being hit by a poisoned arrow. The historical record really does mention this treatment, although it doesn’t name the doctor. In Romance of the Three Kingdoms, that doctor became the legendary physician Hua Tuo. So Guan Yu is also connected to one of the most famous surgery-related stories in Chinese culture.
I have no idea if the drama team intentionally meant that part too, but for a medical drama about a surgeon, it makes the “Apple Guan Gong” image even funnier.
But the apples themselves are actually the most interesting part. 🍎
Apparently, apples are actually a whole thing in Chinese hospital night-shift superstitions. Medical staff sometimes put an apple next to the phone, on top of the phone, or near the night-shift records, hoping for a quiet, uneventful shift with no emergency calls.
The reason is a Chinese wordplay:
苹果 píngguǒ = apple
平安 píng'ān = safe and sound / peace and safety
Because 苹 píng and 平 píng sound the same, apples became a little good-luck symbol for a peaceful shift.
There are even posts jokingly calling the apple the “god of the night shift” 😂
Medical workers post things like:
“If you know, you know. Hospital night-shift superstition! One apple and three cotton swabs have already protected us for 24+ hours.”
“This isn’t an ordinary apple. It needs to have some yellow, some red, and even a little green.”
“You really have to believe it. I put an apple on the phone today, and I didn’t get a single call all night.” 😂
“Who gets it? Carrying an apple in your pocket is basically a medical student’s last bit of stubborn hope.”
“Once a night shift gets busy, it feels like going into battle and there isn’t a moment to rest. But no matter how busy it gets, everyone still makes sure to bring an apple.”
“Where science ends, superstition begins.”
Obviously, they know an apple isn’t actually controlling how many emergencies come in, but when you’re about to start a long night shift... apparently you still don’t mess with the apple.
Small Town Remedy really does go deep into the everyday lives of medical staff. Even the handwriting looks very “doctor-like,” and they even know little night-shift superstitions like putting out apples.
I honestly love details like this. If you don’t know the cultural context, it just looks like a weird pile of apples. Once you know the joke, suddenly the whole poster makes sense 😂
