A photograph of the result of an unusual punishment has gone viral in China.

A professor in Sichuan is punishing students who turn up late for class by making them write a 58-stroke Chinese character 1,000 times. That's 58,000 strokes.

The character in question is so complex that it cannot be entered into computers and Unicode for it hasn't been created yet.

Here's a bigger version of it:

And here's the order in which it is written:

Phonetically it's pronounced as biáng - for Hanyupinyin challenged readers just imagine it as the sound children make when they try to fire an imaginary pistol.

According to Wikipedia, the origin of the word and meaning of the word is unclear. But it is used mostly for a popular noodle dish in Shaanxi province called Biang Biang noodles.

Some people postulate that the word comes from the sound a chef makes as he slaps noodle dough on a surface as he pulls the dough into noodles.

For Singaporeans, this may solve the mystery of one of the 9 ‘sounds’ Singaporeans use but probably have no idea where they come from:

So is this the most complex Chinese character? Probably yes.

But if you include Japanese use of Chinese characters in the mix, then the 84-stroke character for Taito - or the appearance of a dragon in flight - wins hands down:

Top photo from Chengdu.cn

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