How big is your mud figurine ? I have one that is barely .5 MM tall and I treaure this very much. I have another one 3 feet tall, a figurine of Chung Kwai, the ghost catcher.

There are various places over China that produce mud figurines. For smaller ones, the artists just pick a small piece of mud and in no time, they can make a figurine out of it by using their two fingers. For bigger ones, I like the ones made from Stone Bay of Kwangtung. These figurines can cost thousands of dollars if they are made by the masters. Some are so good that they become museum collections.

Excuse my ignorance. I have never heard of a book or even the term of San Ai Shi. Wouldn't it be Sam San Sek ( three lifetime stone )instead ? Sam san sek is famous in Chinese literature or belief. Many people believe that marriages are "fixed" in the past life, that carries to the present life and will continue till the next life, hence the term of Sam san, the three lives. And the promises or encounter of such romances are written or promised on this three lives stone.

¤ß¤§¦bÅé§g¤§¦ì¤]
¤E¬¤§¦³Â¾©x¤À¤]
¤ß³B¨ä¹D¤E¬´`¸Ì
¶Ý±ý¥R¯q¥Ø¤£¨£¦â
¦Õ¤£»DÁn¬G¤ê¤WÂ÷
¨ä¹D¤U¥¢¨ä¨Æ

ºÞ¤l¡E¤ß³N

(Beside its valuable content, the syntactical construction of ¡i¤ß¦bÅé¡X¤ß¤§¦bÅé¡jis interesting!)

Alfred

http://www.fa-kuan.muc.de
Traces of Butterflies' Dreams - ½º¹Ú²ª
My Poetry

Click here to see their announcement.

Look closely, and you will see ºë ©¾ ³ø °ê

http://www.usc.edu/isd/locations/ssh/eastasian/wjbiblio.htm

Alfred

http://www.fa-kuan.muc.de
Traces of Butterflies' Dreams - ½º¹Ú²ª
My Poetry

It is very easy to identify Kwan Gung. He is usually shown with full armour sitting down reading the book of "Spring and Autumn ". Very often he is accompanied by his son and his faithful follower, Chow Chong. Kwan has a red face and a beard 3 feet long. That is his trade mark. If Kwan is not in full armour, then he is usually dressing a green garment.

Sa Ho Sang is also easy to identify. He wears a head band and he holds a weapon that looks like a spear but with a moon-shape spade. That is his trade mark. He is often shown as carrying his master's books or leading the White Horse.

Dear Stephen, I have to come to your side ;) - since never having had a look on the general's back though, I just can refer to my good old 'Mathew's: there I found 'jing1 zhong' ºë©¾ etc., but not the tattoo's quotation - whereas it is under 'jin4' ºÉ©¾ (entirely loyal; faithful until death): ºÉ©R³ø°ê ('utterly loyal, tattooed on the back of Yueh Fei, ©¨­¸').
In my humble (ignorant) opinion, the expression 'jin4' (utmost) is stronger than 'jing1' (unrefined, pure), because including even death (see above).

BTW, my poor computer cannot display Japanese characters! Could you try it one more time with BIG5?

Alfred

http://www.fa-kuan.muc.de
Traces of Butterflies' Dreams - ½º¹Ú²ª
My Poetry

Nice to hear from you after one year.

I looked back our emails from the Archives section ( thanks to Ming who keeps such records )and I apologized for only providing the Chinese title and name of the author. As I said, I don't know the official translated title of this book ¤å ¤ß ÀJ Às that can be translated literally as " Literature Heart Craving Dragons " and the author's name is Liu Hip. ¼B ¼E .

BTW, ºÉ is incorrect.

The young man referred to by Ming is ¤E ¯¾ Às ¥v ¶i , a very famous hero in the book of Water Margin. It also proves tattoo has a long history in China.

Tattoo has always been frowned upon by scholars. By the concept of Confucism, one's body is the gift of one's parent, and may never be dis-figured or wasted. Thus, in the famous story of General Yueh Fei, his mother ordered a tattoo to be put on his back as a permanent reminder. This was an unusual act, which was celebrated in songs, plays and Beijing opera. I mentioned this in my Tattoo page.

"Tattoo is ¨ë «C or ¯¾ ¨­ . I have a feeling that the term ¨ë ¨­ is derived from the above two translation." (Julian)

Interestingly, I didn't find the word for 'tattoo' in most of my Chinese dictionaries (Chinese-English, Chinese-German; German-Chinese etc.). There might be one of two reasons for this, or even both:
1) Tattooing never was very common or of high esteem in China as it was in many other cultures outside Europe.
2) In the People's Republic (but also in Hong Kong and Taiwan!), where most of my dictionaries come from, tattoos haven't been regarded worth mentioning (because of - see Nr. 1).

Mathew's has no entry under 'wen2' ¯¾ for 'tattoo'; under 'tzu4/ci4' ¨ë there is 'tzu4 hua1 wen2' ¨ëªá¯¾ (tattoo - with ornamentals/flowers) and expressions like 'tzu4 lien3' ¨ëÁy or 'tzu4 mien4' ¨ë­± (to brand the face!) or 'tzu4 tzu4' ¨ë¦r (to write with a stylus; to brand a criminal by tattooing!).
So, most of the meaning there refers to punishment or branding for reasons other than decorational.

The word 'tattoo' ('taetowieren' in German) derives from 'tatau' (polynesian: sign, figure, mark). In non-Eurpean reagions (outside China!) tattoos were highly estimated as symbols of social, spiritual etc. rank. (Also the first Asian people(s) entering the New World via Bering Street most probably had tattoos on their faces, like also had their descendents, the Athapaskans, Inuits etc. 'Oetzi' also was tattooed - most probably for health 'acupucture' reason.)
Since historical times, Japan is famous for its art of large tattoos (often covering the whole body, arms and backs, with artistically designed dragons etc.). That's why I tend guessing that the modern Chinese expressions like ¨ë¨­ or ¯¾¨­ (body piecing/decorating) might derive from Japanese terms. Maybe Stephen could look after it in his Japanese dictionaries?

Alfred

http://www.fa-kuan.muc.de
Traces of Butterflies' Dreams - ½º¹Ú²ª
My Poetry

I am glad that you asked this question. It shows that you are interested in Chinese culture. I obtained the following information on Li Bai from this website http://www.okcom.net/~ggao/Asia/China/lipocom.html

Here is the excerpt: Li Bai (701-762) -- Great Poet of All Ages

Li Bai is one of the best-loved poets in all the long course of Chinese literature. He was born and lived most of his life in the age of the Tang Emperor Hsuan-tzung (Ming Huang, the Illustrious), which was a golden age of the "shi" (poetry) which was shaped by hands like Li and his contemporaries such as Du Fu and Wang Wei into an erudite and exquisite perfection.

There has been a rich body of legends of Li Bai's ancestry and his birth. It is generally agreed that whether he was born in Gansu, Central Asia, or some other region, Li grew up and spent his boyhood in Sichuan.His writings indicate that in 725 he left home for Central and East China, partly to travel, partly to gain recognition for his talent. But fame did not come his way until many years later. In the meantime he married and made his home first in Hupei Province, then in Shandong, later in the Lower Yangtze area. Finally he went to Changan, the capital then, where he was presented to Emperor Hsuan-tzung, and given a position in the Hanlin Academy, in about 742. Li Bai, however, was not destined to enjoy the imperial favor for long. In 744 he fell victim to court intrigues and was allowed to leave the capital to "return to the hills".

Many of Li's writings are about nature, his Taoist inclination, his drinking bouts, and his seeming casualness toward wealth and fame. This is a reflection of High Tang culture milieu and is shared by many of his contemporaries.

In today's New York Times (August 24, 1999), there is a news report about a mis-spelled word tattooed on a man's back, who now sues the tattoo artist for $20,000. So, Alfred beware :-)

On tattoos

Dear Stephen, you mentioned the medical (health) aspect of tattooing - nowadays not only rather 'fashionable' and 'cool' among younger people. Let me again point to the 'human' aspect - naturally - not yet realized and felt by our youngsters (it's my own posting's quotation from some time ago with regard to Siu-Leung's remarks to this topic):

I've been getting requests too for tatoo design with Chinese characters, being in the same situation mentioned by Dr. Lee. It's not at all too bad an idea to have a Chinese character tattoo - if in the first place one really wants to have one. For it's quite more easy to drop a high-flown and silly first name given to you by your parents, than to remove an annoying tattoo, unmasking your (false and embarassing?) feelings you once have had. (I know what I'm talking of, as I - when a boy - ran through the phone book of my hometown in order to find a tattoo shop ... Fortunately I didn't live in Hamburg or somewhere else in a seaport, so I couldn't find any in those days!) I can understand young people wanting to decorate their bodies in order to improve their appearences or just to express their feelings or show their convictions. But those very often are just ephemeral - whereas the tattoos will remain for a while, just passing away together with their bodies. Meant to last for a "whole lifetime", those pictures begin to decay with their bearer: I'm accustomed to see their poor, dead bodies every day; no matter, if they had died young or old: their tattoos (all those "Love forever", "Destroyer", dragons, tigers, strength etc.) are sad and silly pictures, all the more, if they're huge, expensive or real works of art. I think, the human skin is not a good canvas (except maybe for the Chinese character "yong3" ¥Ã eternal, if meant sarcastically, or some other signs worn by monks as reminders in the sense of 'vita brevis').

I think we should mention these aspects from time to time, so thank you, dear Stephen, for your contribution....

Alfred

http://www.fa-kuan.muc.de
Traces of Butterflies' Dreams - ½º¹Ú²ª
My Poetry

From time to time, again some remarks to all the (young) people asking for Chinese symbols for tattoos etc.:
I always have been willing doing you the favour and designing/generating gif graphics on your request, because knowing that you most probably cannot read Chinese in BIG5 encoding. I appreciate your interest in Chinese writing (because this is what I'm interested in too - so I can understand your fascination).
Yet, doing this job for you, is not quite natural - so at least, there could be a 'thank you' for it, or even some feedback ...
In general (and in comparison to the situation in my German experts' board), I can say that young people outside my home country are seeming to be more polite, better educated and less demanding :(

So we can still be hopeful, can't we?...

Alfred

http://www.fa-kuan.muc.de
Traces of Butterflies' Dreams - ½º¹Ú²ª
My Poetry

There are also certain flowers attached to the twelve months, yet they differ a lot. The 'fixed' ones are:
2nd month: 'apricot blossom' §ö Hsing (see: Tu Mu's poem 'Shan Hsing' ¤s¦æ, last line: Á÷¸­¬õ©ó¤G¤ëªá)
3rd month: 'peach blossom' ®ç Tao
6th month: 'lotos'
8th month: 'cinnamon blossom' ®Û Kuei (Cassia)
9th month: 'chrysanthemum'

There are still other flowers connected with months, e.g. the rainfalls of the 6th month - about the summer solstice - are called ¶À±ö«B Huang-mei yu: (Yellow Plum or Apricot rain).

Alfred

http://www.fa-kuan.muc.de
Traces of Butterflies' Dreams - ½º¹Ú²ª
My Poetry

Ingrid, "the oldest ¥j¤å graphies that have come down to us in their original form, are traced back to the 18th century B.C. Their study reveals the fact, that while their making was well defined, their form varied much."
Yet, "tradition ascribes the idea of the characters to ¥ñ¿ª Fu-hsi, and their first drawing to ­ÜÂ^ (the 2nd character without the hand radical!) Ts'ang Hsieh, two worthies of the *prehistoric age*. The systematisation of Chinese writing, is attributed to ¶À«Ò Huang-ti (Yellow Emperor), the founder of the Chinese empire, 25th century B.C. Some texts of the Annals, may have been earlier than the 22nd century B.C." (Dr. L. Wieger, S.J.).

Sandy, as for 'Namaski', I have not much ideas: At first sight, I thought it was Ro'manes (Gypsy language), yet it does not seem so. I guess it is slavic (Russian, Polish??), maybe with the meaning of something like: 'in the meantime ... / until next / See you!' But this is just a guest. It is *not* Chinese, anyway!

Alfred

http://www.fa-kuan.muc.de
Traces of Butterflies' Dreams - ½º¹Ú²
My Poetry

Discussions of previous months are archived and easily available. In addition, one can also try to search by keywords as well.

You asked this question before! There has been many answers posted here. Please scroll back and read them.

The mountain is Lu Shan. But study previous messages for details. And report back that you read them!

In Chinese legends, there are a few door gods. Besides Chung Kwai, there are other favorite ones. Yoon-ngan emailed to us an article on two other famous door gods. I am posting it here for you and other interested readers.

Julian gave a good, concise description of the Door God.

I would not call him ugly. Ferocious, yes.

This is a very popular peasant print, often bought by the peasnats during the New Year to decorate their front door. It is what the museum curators would call "folk art."

I will try to add one to the "New Year" page when I update it during the coming New Year.

You can find answers to both your questions if you click on the "Dictionaries" button in the Home Page of this website. Use the relevant pages for each question.

By the way, you are looking for Chinese words, not "symbols." You would not use the terms like French symbols or English symbol, would you?

Chinese language has its written language, with written words and grammers, long before most of the other languages of the world.

Your last clue actually threw me off. Without your clue, I would have guessed the person was Chung Kwai Áé ØP . Chung Kwai was born in the Tang Dynasty. He was a very learned but ugly man. Legend has it that Chung passed the national examine with flying colors. However when he appeared before the Imperial Court, the emperor was so shocked by his ugliness that Chung was disqualified by the emperor. This has something to do with the Tang selection criteria which was based on Appearance ¨­ , Speaking technique ¨¥ , Writing skill ®Ñ and Judgment §P . Chung failed miserably in his appearance. Chung couldn't accept this reality and he committed suicide.

The mountains of Lu Shan are spectacular, and serve as the most inspiring background for the waterfall. One can spend a life time looking at them, as have generations of poets and painter.

As some of you may have noticed already, I have re-arranged this Discussions Page into two separate Pages: Original plus New.
(1) Original Page (This Page) - There is no change at this page, except to move some of the more advanced discussions out to the New Page.
(2) New Page - A new Discussions Page for more in-depth discussions of topics. This page is especially created for those people who wish to post longer and more involved topics, that are of less interest to the majority of the readers.

Both pages are part of "China the Beautiful". You can reach both pages from the same Discussion Home Page.

Our Discussions Page has grown in popularity during the past year. A small number of readers have been actively posting their comments for everyone to read. They are also extremely helpful in answering questions posted by others. And there are a much larger number of 'silent' readers as well. Last week over 300 readers have logged on to read what's posted here. This number will undoubtedly increase with time.

In order to serve both group of readers better, I felt that the time has come to add a New Page catering to the more advanced group so they may post:
(1 longer articles. (2) talk about more specialized matters. (3) pictures, graphics files (4) etc.
They may do so in a larger space separate from the Original Page. As always, every one is expected to use his/her own judgment as to which of the two Pages is the more appropriate place to post.

I will continue to monitor both Pages. In addition, Rudy has kindly agreed to assist me in managing the New Page. (The New Page is also called the Yahoo Club by some, as it is physically located at Yahoo.)

At this moment, there is a lively discussion about stone rubbings of Chinese calligraphy. I urge you take a moment to view them (and to participate). Rudy has posted some very interesting example jpg files there as well (which we are not able to do here.).

But of course we can have discussions on other topics carried on at the same time. We are not limited to just one discussion topics at a given moment. The New Discussion Page is designed to have more than one Discussion at a given moment, and that you can easily followed a particular topic, without interference by other posting (which we cannot do here). This arrangement is called "threading".

In the New Page, the opening page is the Index Page, which lists the "Subject" of each posting. Thus you can easily skip over any posting that you do not wish to read ( it will not be downloaded to your computer). In this way, we can have many longer articles, without slow downloading time.

On the other hand, everything in This Page is downloaded to your computer, whether you want to read them or not. (This is the reason that I do not permit the posting of large pictures or graphics Here.) This is faster for several shorter postings, but bad if there are many long articles.

I believe the new arrangement provides better service to the large number of readers. It will be slightly more involved for the 'experts', because they have to go to two pages instead of one page as in the past. But the increased space and additional capabilities should more than make up for it.

One final word: You can view the New Page without joining it as a member. However, if you wish to post your discussions, you will be asked to register (free).

Ming
China the Beautiful

I tried to get into the hyperlinked New Discussion page at the Yahoo China Beautiful Club, but could not open any page except a Yahoo Club Page. I tried with China Century Club, and it was the same. Is Yahoo having a frozen time off at this very moment? I don't think the two Yahoo Clubs can be so co-incidental as to have their moderators freezing up at the same time.

Ming

I also do not allow the inclusion of in-line gif pictures, because it slows down the downloading for everyone. The new Discussion Page solves this in a much better way.

As for the problem of short columns, it can be corrected.

Dear Ming thanks for your hint on vertical writing! Let's try it out ;)

It works fine, except of columns with different length (last one!).

BTW, silly people live everywhere (what region was ancient Sung?)!

Alfred

http://www.fa-kuan.muc.de
Traces of Butterflies' Dreams - ½º¹Ú²ª
My Poetry

Ingrid, you find the whole poem's text and calligraphy on my page on Chu Yun-ming's 'Grass'-Style: It is the first poem of five.

Alfred

http://www.fa-kuan.muc.de
Traces of Butterflies' Dreams - ½º¹Ú²ª
My Poetry

Good question. I cannot identify the poem you refer to. Can you post the complete poem. If possible, who was the translator and where you found the translation.

If you can read Chinese, perhaps you can find the poem in this website at the Libai Poetry Page, which is at www.chinapage.org/libai/libai-poetry.html

There is no historical portrait of Huang Di.

There are many versions as to how the Shao Lin disciples, not necessarily monks got their Dragon and Lion impression on their forearms. Rudy has provided one.

The one I remember is like this: Before a disciple can graduate, he/she must pass an alley called Wooden Men Alley and he/she must knock down all the wooden mechanical robots controlled by the monks. After knocking all these wooden robots, then he/she must life a big red-hot tripot with his/her forearms, thereby leaving a permanent dragon and tiger impression that are carved on the tripod.

I don't know if it is good format for discussing scholarly stuff. I think that probably is good for an instantaneous resolution of an issue and getting consensus from a number of people in the chat mode. We are still at the stage of getting over the technical for the board. Please do join us.

Oh, oh. I am having font trouble again. Maybe I am setting up a Chinese character non-phonetic "Esperanto". Sorry. I am re-posting this message again in the correct font. hopefully it is right this time. It is not fair to expect you to talk about the Heng Hua without the actual Chinese character identification.

You will recall me asking about the group of people in Fujian Province calling themselves the Heng Hua People. In Mandarin they are the Xing4 Hua4 ¿³¤Æ from Pu2Tian2 City ³@¥Ð¥«¥Û®x§ø ÆÎThey apparently moved over to South-eastern China during the Song Dynasty, and were a highly educated group of courtiers. Their migratory pattern is similar to the Hakkas who settled in Fujian.

In Singapore and Malaysia, they were and are the experts on bicycle and motor-vehicular repairs, finally controlling the motor-car and trucking agencies and spare part distribution. Their dialect is slightly different from the Hokkiens ( Southern Fujianese Min3 Nan2 »Ô«n ) and they are very industious and conspicious leaders among overseas Chinese communities in Singapore and Malaysia.

I hope you and Siu-Leung or other members of this discussion group can enlighten me more about them. As you have a good working knowledge of Taiwan and Fujian, it will be easy to identify this group with the correct Chinese characters.

>>¤W­÷ (upper eating time), and afternoon as ¤U­÷ (lower eating time). The southern Fujian dialect, such as Taiwanese, still call time this way. The character ­÷ (po) in dialect means "chewing". Night was called ®Ë®É (am-si).

how interesting. Hakka has the same terms, showing its ancient origin and relationship with Fukkien dialect.

You will recall me asking about the group of people in Fujian Province calling themselves the Heng Hua People. In Mandarin they are the Xing4 Hua4 ÐË»¯ from Pu2Tian2 City ÆÎÌïÊÐʯͥ´å. They apparently moved over to South-eastern China during the Song Dynasty, and were a highly educated group of courtiers. Their migratory pattern is similar to the Hakkas who settled in Fujian.

In Singapore and Malaysia, they were and are the experts on bicycle and motor-vehicular repairs, finally controlling the motor-car and trucking agencies and spare part distribution. Their dialect is slightly different from the Hokkiens ( Southern Fujianese Min3 Nan2 ÃöÄÏ ) and they are very industious and conspicious leaders among overseas Chinese communities in Singapore and Malaysia.

I hope you and Siu-Leung or other members of this discussion group can enlighten me more about them. As you have a good working knowledge of Taiwan and Fujian, it will be easy to identify this group with the correct Chinese characters.

¡@ ¡@ ¾G ¤H ¦³ ¬Û »P ª§ ¦~ ªÌ ¡A ¤@ ¤H ¤ê ¡G ¡y §^ »P ³ó ¦P ¦~ ¡C ¡z ¨ä ¤@ ¤H ¤ê ¡G ¡y §Ú »P ¶À «Ò ¤§ ¥S ¦P ¦~ ¡C ¡z ³^ ¦¹ ¦Ó ¤£ ¨M ¡A ¥H «á ®§ ªÌ ¬° ³Ó ¦Õ ¡C

I read with interest your post advising Vladimir of the link to Paul Stonehill's "Mysteries of Yellow Emperor", which suggested that HuangDi was a Terrestrial Being. I am not a believer of such fanstasy speculation on the basis of tripods.

Mr. Stoenhill also mentioned about a fifth ancient civilisation in addition to the known Egyptian, Babylonian, Indian and Chinese Civilisations. The archaelogical site that he mentioned south west of Chengdu, the capital of Sichuan Province in South-west China, must be the exciting ¤T¬P°ï SanXingDui (Three Star Heap). I was at SanXingDui in April 1999 with a knowledgeable Taiwanese gentleman, and the impressive artefacts are said to be about 2500 to 4500 years old. They are in the style of the Shang Dynasty, though some look very much Mayan.

I beg to differ from Mr. Stonehill that it is a site of a different culture from the Chinese of the Central Plains. Nevertheless, it is likely that Chinese history will have to be revised to accomodate for this group of people, who must have drifted down to the South-West China during the legendary Xia or the historically accepted early Shang Dynasty. How and why will be left to the archaelogists. Many of the SanXingDui artefacts have been shown in London and other Western European cities. SanXingDui is certainly worth a half-day visit, if one should be on holiday in Sichuan, but it is not on the usual tourist itinerary.

¾G¤H¡C¡C¡C

For you friends liking the stories about those people of ancient Cheng, here's another one really causing you smile (and being thoughtful!):

Of course, this is also from Han Fei Áú«D.

Enjoy it!

Alfred

http://www.fa-kuan.muc.de
Traces of Butterflies' Dreams - ½º¹Ú²ª
My Poetry

I am a disciple of Tai Chi Chuan. My sifu has sent me on a quest to find the significance of the number 108. I know that the number is used in several Chinese legends and that it is used in the Buddist religion. What I don't know is the origin of that particular number or any special significance of that number. Any help or suggestions would be greatly appreciated.

Vladimir, here is the URL of a website on Huang-ti with a graphic of the legendary ruler. For sure, it is fancy! The page is nevertheless interesting - posing the question whether Huang-ti came from space pointing out that the ancient tripods could have been means to communicate with extraterrestial spaces:

http://www.parascope.com/articles/1297/huangti_intro.htm

Alfred

http://www.fa-kuan.muc.de
Traces of Butterflies' Dreams - ½º¹Ú²ª
My Poetry

Dear Ming, Julian and Stephen,
according to my sources Julian's interpretation is rather close: I looked up my English dictionary and found "to presume on/upon" for ®µ in this special context. In German it is translated by "sich etwas zugute halten auf ...". Stephen's idea of "to burden with" on the other hand refers to the original meaning and in my opinion is beautiful because "making/keeping friendship" would indeed be "burdened" (deeply effected).

ªø (zhang3) means "being older/younger of age"
¶Q means "being higher/lower in social hierarchy"
¥S§Ì means "being higher/lower in family hierarchy"

So, maybe the sense could be grasped by somewhat like: "In making/keeping friendship, don't let this be influenced/effected by (consideration of) being ..."

Anyway, the "keyword" is ®µ

Alfred

http://www.fa-kuan.muc.de
Traces of Butterflies' Dreams - ½º¹Ú²ª
My Poetry

I like to get into this discussion.

The word ®µ means ®µ «ù and/or ­Ê ¥M . In this particular sentence, I would translate it in ¥Õ ¸Ü ¤å as

There are quite some of those stories, all of them beginning with "¾G¤H¡C¡C¡C"

Dear Alfred,

In Canada, when people tell a joke, they often start with " An Ukrainian " or " A Polish ". Interesting enough, the Ukrainians and the Polish people are not offended by the jokes. I have a lot of Ukrainians friends and they just laught as heartily as the others when they hear such jokes.

Cantonese also play such jokes and they pick on the people of ¤T ¤ô .

Many thanks for informing us about Taiwan opting for the Hanyu Pinyin. This is truly the first step to mutual understanding and a further dialogue with a golden opportunity for trade and investment in a brotherly. Invectives and sabre-rattling has no place in modern peaceful times. You have made my day!!!

Perhaps it takes its meaning from ¥| ®ü ¤§ ¤º ¬Ò ¥S §Ì ¤]
All men are brothers.

I am happy to again being able to read Chinese on August's forum edition: Ming, please inform me on your technical changes.

Dear Rudy, thank you for your "incoherent thinking" that I really enjoyed. Don't hesitate to go ahead with it, at the same time being deeply thoughtful (telling true facts of spiders weaving their 'cruel' and 'evil' webs 'invented' aeons before our time. - When did 'good' and 'evil' begin to exist? Is it a mere product of human thinking/feeling?*) and humorous in a refreshing way. All this started by a piece of text more than 2000 years old! (* Isn't it remarkable that all (and only) human beings - in pre-historic ages as well as in our days, no matter what culture they belong to - ever have asked these questions: where do we come from, who are we, where are we going to? There has to be something/someone called ¤Ñ or ¤W«Ò or ancestors, God, Allah, Jahve etc.!

Dear Stephen, thanks for your translation. I like the translation 'burden' for ®µ xie2/xia (carrying under one's arm) although differing from my sources. It is really very complicated to get the sense of this expression adequately in different languages.

The 'torii' seem to refer to shinto-ism (Japan) being the name for gates/shrines to/of the 'spirits' (shin/¯«?).

Alfred

http://www.fa-kuan.muc.de
Traces of Butterflies' Dreams - ½º¹Ú²ª
My Poetry

[CND, 08/01/99] Taiwan is to adopt the mainland's system of romanizing the phonetic transcription of Chinese characters, Taiwan's Vice Premier LIU Chao-shiuan announced on Tuesday, AFP reported.

Hanyu Pinyin, a phonetic system using Roman alphabets to represent Chinese characters as pronounced in Mandarin, was introduced in the mainland in 1958, after the Nationalists flet the mainland upon losing the civil war.

The political and military rivalry with the mainland led Taiwan to reject Pinyin. However, Taiwan has been using a few systems without a single standard, resulting in different versions of romanized spellings for the same Chinese character.

Mr. Liu said that Taiwan's adoption of Hanyu Pinyin was due to the system's widespread international recognition. Therefore a pragmatic approach is necessary for linguistic matters.

Please post the complete poem, and any related facts, so we can identify and translate it.

If you are not able to input Chinese, try scan it and send it as a gif file to me by email.

Shaolin Temple in Fukian is second in importance to the Shaolin Temple in Henan Province. It was burned to the ground during the Boxer Rebellion in 1901.

Dear Stephen and other friends, some interesting phrases I'd like to share with you and hearing your opinion, are¡i«Ä´£¤§µ£¡j and ¡i¤Î¨äªø¡j.
The first expression: "little children" (=boys, in the age already capable to *smile* «Ä and *being lead by the hand* ´£ - compare: engl. "toddler") The second: "reaching their being older" (=when having grown older, ...).
¡i¨}¯à¡j¡i¨}ª¾¡j : I'd translate it by "intuitive/natural capability" and "intuitive/natural knowledge"

Another piece of text I have some problems with an adequate translation, is also from ©s¤l dealing of a famous contemporary and student named ¸U³¹:

¡i´±°Ý¤Í¡j"I dare asking for your friendship" (???)
¡i¤£¥i¥H¦³®µ¡j"cannot pride oneself on it/something" (?)
¡i¤Í¤]ªÌ¡j"making/keeping friendship means ..."

Ming: Please, have a look in your source code, I bet it is *not* my end ;(( - others don't work on Macintosh platform!!

Alfred

http://www.fa-kuan.muc.de
Traces of Butterflies' Dreams - ½º¹Ú²ª
My Poetry

Dear Ming, like already once in the past, the message board is no longer readable with regard to Chinese characters (BIG5 or GuoBiao). I'd guess you have altered the font tags. Please look after it, thanks.

Alfred

http://www.fa-kuan.muc.de
Traces of Butterflies' Dreams - ***/*?/A>
My Poetry