Kung pao chicken appears on virtually every Chinese restaurant menu in the English-speaking world. It is spicy, it is popular, and its name is wrong.
The dish is named after Ding Baozhen, a Qing dynasty official who held the title Gōngbǎo—Palace Guardian. The dish was his favorite, and it came to be known as Gōngbǎo jīdīng—Palace Guardian chicken cubes. In pinyin, the dish is gongbao chicken. Wade-Giles rendered it as kung pao.
The same problem recurs: k- instead of g-, ng where pinyin has ng but with an extra dimension of confusion. Kung pao in English suggests a connection to kongfu—both contain kung—but the two words have nothing to do with each other. The false friend is created entirely by the romanization system.
Chinese speakers order gongbao jiding. English speakers order kung pao chicken. The dish arrives correctly. The name does not. This may seem trivial—it is, after all, just a menu item—but menu items are how most English speakers encounter Chinese culture. They are the most frequent point of contact. Getting them wrong means getting the most common cultural exchange wrong, over and over, millions of times a day.
Gongbao chicken is phonetically identical for an English speaker. No new sound needs to be learned. Only the spelling changes. And with the spelling, the connection to the historical figure is restored.
Our Recommendation: Gongbao chicken. Honor the Palace Guardian with his real name.