I don't think I will be able to watch the same program on our Canada National Chinese TV Channel or on Hong Kong TVB. Such programs will not be broadcast. If I am wrong, let me know so that I can watch it on the Canadian or US channels.

拦 锤 has always been my favorite writer. I read many of her earlier works and I have been following her whereabouts. She lived once in Canada as well. Her outspokenness is legendary. So she has not changed much after so many years.

Dear Friends, within a couple of hours the People's Republic will start celebrating her 50th anniversary of existence (Oct. 1, 1949). For this reason I am reading some articles in my newspaper "Sueddeutsche Zeitung" (South German Newspaper) and I must say, hearing people take stock has a sad outcome.

Our correspondent Kai Strittmatter in Peking spoke with the journalist and dissident Dai Qing having a long interview with her: the summary is a black picture giving the headline "Die Suppe ist verbrannt und der Fisch ist tot" (The soup is burnt and the fish is dead). She says, other than promised in 1949, China did not rise, because only the government rose - and not the people. She asks, why are there ships full of Chinese refugees at the shores of Canada, why are people standing in line in front of U.S. and Korean ambassies instead of being proud of their country China, why are peasants as well as Jiang Zemin and his ministers sending their children out of the country? From down to up above, we are realizing this great escape in to foreign countries. Many citizens first transfer their money abroad, and later on also their children. Dai Qing (her parents being 'martyrs of the revolution', her adoptive father, marshal Ye Jianying, Mao's friend) once was a red gardist in the sixties drunken from her 'god' Mao Tsetung: she left the communist party (and announcing this publicly) on June 5, 1989 (i.e. one day after the 'events' on Tiananmen). Now, she speaks of the present achievements as "der Motorola-Geist ist ueber China gekommen ohne Menschenrechte oder Freiheit" (the Motorola spirit has come over China without human rights or freedom). She regards the "anniversary" as a too expensive spectacle and fuss and Jiang Zemin ('the actor') trying to outstrip Mao ('the messias') and Deng ('the micecatcher') in order to join up in the ancient emperors' lines. Dai Qing points to the fact that corruption is overwhelming and everywhere (encluding the simple postman up to the Hongkong tycoon Lee Kai-hsing, who built 'Oriental Plaza' in Peking) etc. etc.

The picture drawn by Hong Ying (a well-known author, grown up at the banks of Yang-tse, now living in London) is similar: "Fluss ohne Wiederkehr" (river of no return) - 50 years after the revolution not only Yangtse is going downstreams, but whole China too 'goes down the river' (=goes up in smoke). With regard to the suffering of the Chinese people, she says, "everthing is changing, yet nothing will turn out all right - even Hongkong now belongs to it."
(I wanted to make these publications available to Stephen - able to read German -, but I found they're not published on line at www.sueddeutsche.de).

Japan, a country of high technological standard maybe now has its 'Tchernobyl' - they seem to be helpless, most scaring to the whole world!

At last: Guenter Grass has got the Nobel prize for literature: Congratulations! Stephen did you ever read his "Blechtrommel" (Tin Drum)? I did, in the fifties, and was bored, delighted and somtimes offended. Anyway, it is really worth reading. Anybody knowing of a Chinese version?

Alfred

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

Forget the little red book. It's a bad idea. The book is a collection of political statements by Mao, whose time has passed. No one in China reads it now, and it certainly won't help you to understand China.

Red in Chinese tradition represents happiness, luck and good fortune. It is therefore a tradition to dress in red during joyful occasions like birthday parties, weddings and big events. During Chinese New Year, just about everybody will put on something red and people will decorate their homes with red colour. Lucky money is given out to youngsters in red packets. Before electricity time, Chinese used red lanterns to light up their houses. When a family member passed away, they would change the lanterns to blue colour that meant sadness.

When Community China took over the rule in 1949, they chose red colour to be their 搊fficial?colour. Hence they named their supporters during the Cultural Revolution the 揜ed Guards? The national flag is red and the famous Mao抯 little book is called the 揜ed Book? I guess they chose red to signify the many communists who lost their lives for the party during the revolution. Blood is red, right ? This is only my guess.

In fact, red is the official or favorite color for many countries throughout the world. Canada likes red colour as well. If you watch international sports events, you will see Canada often chooses red uniforms. Of course, our RCMP抯 uniform is red too.

I received a copyright release request from the US Social Security Administration, San Francisco Region, Employee Training and Development Team, Richmond, California. It will duplicate the language page of "Hakka - An Important Element of Chinese Culture" for training material to serve the Chinese-speaking customers. This is the first time of such significant awareness and application of Hakka Chinese culture by the US government. I think it is a great piece of news to share with everybody.

The language section is found at:
http://www.asiawind.com/pub/hakka/language.htm

I found Yahoo's game site has weiqi games live. You can watch or play with a live opponent on the net. Several levels and different board sizes are available. Quite interesting.

I looked up the poaper by John Fairbairn you quoted. There was indeed the mentioning of the 17x17 board in the introduction chapter.

"From China this includes a 17x17 stone board dated prior to 200 AD found in Wangdu County in 1954 and now in Beijing Historical Museum (Watanabe Y. 1977:119) and an exquisite picture on silk of a Tang lady playing go, also on a 17x17 board, excavated in 1974 at Torfan and dated around 750 AD (Watanabe Y. 1977:119-120; reproduced in colour in Go World 29, Autumn 1982)."

It also mentioned that the only 17x17 board now is only played in Tibet.

According to the picture of recent relics posted in your link, the board in Sui and Tang dynasty still can only be played as 17x17. The lines are marked across to the edge, but the stones would not be able to stay on the edge. I never heard of the 17x17 board until this one triggered my curiosity. The earliest dating of the game goes back to Han dynasty.

In it, I gave a URL to John Fairbairn's very thorough discussion about the game. Well worth a look.

I have never heard nor noticed the 17x17 board before. Very interesting. The game is described in many books. Perhaps there are more about this.

I learned to play weiqi during my stay in Hong Kong 1989-93, against a computer software. It was the first time I got so drawn in by a board game, after the international chess (against an Apple II software). One can learn a lot about the philosophy of life by playing weiqi. No game is a loss until the very end. One should treat every movement carefully in the whole game. A small fault can lead to big disaster.

Siu-Leung Lee

I saw the recent relic page as Ming recommended (http://www.chinatoday.com/art/rel/b.htm). One thing striking about the weiqi (Japanese "go") board from Sui dynasty is it has 19 lines if you include the edge line and everything is just the same as the board nowadays. But you can't play without the "soldiers" falling off the edge. So, the board is either placed in an opening of the same thickness to hold the "soldiers" on the edge or the playble lines are only 17 on each side and the four stars are marked closer to the playable corner (2 x 2 instead of 3 x 3 nowadays). From the design of the board with decor on the bottom, it looks like the board is meant for only 17 playable lines, not 19! If my guess is correct, the weiqi players in Sui dynasty would have had an easier time. Each additional line to the board would increase the difficulty and variation tremendously.

This is an interesting observation to be confirmed.

There was a website that has the round houses that my site pointed to, so I did not include any pictures. But the site might be closed down. I have to check. I think the official name is Tu Lou 加. The Yang family in Song dynasty was fighting norhtern "invaders". Hakka tend to identify any one fighting against norhtern invaders because they were the victims of the invasion. Song dynasty was the time when a massive migration to the south occurred. That could be the reason the Yang family was called Hakka. So is Yue Fei, and many others. Yue Fei was born in Hubei. Hakka recognize their origins from the north. To this date, the origin of the clan is used in setting organizations. Like 狶睲猠绑, the first is the family name, the second part is the origin of the branch. You can find a list of these clans on my site.

Siu-Leung

I have just manage to hear the whole tune in continuity after I put a "pause" and then continue with "play". Wonderful for such an oldie piece, despite some background noise.

Tin-Kay

Rudy, Rudy, Rudy

Many, many thanks for introducing the website at Yongding. I don't think Siu-Leung will want any more photos once he has seen the website. Fantastic, these Hakka people! Yet, so few of us are aware of the different types of Round Houses. I will try to get some close-up shots when I am there.

Siu-Leung

I tried to hear the Oldest Flute on WAV, but I only got "spurts" of the flute musical notes. Is there anything wrong with my reception? Did you hear a continuous tune? At the Yongding's website, there is a picture of an opera on the Yang family lady generals. I wonder if the Yangs were also Hakkas. I thought they came from Shansi, because there is a town in Shansi full of the Yang descendents and housing the Yang memorial hall.

Tin-Kay

I am leaving for a trip to Fujian in the next few days. Reading through the travel books, I am rather fascinated with a place at the Fujian-Guangdong border some 160 km eastwards (inland) from Xiamen called Yong Ding ッ﹚. Apparently, many Japanese tourists go there to see the unique Hakka architecture of the Roundhouse, though many Fujianese and travel guides are not very aware of this place.

I have checked Siu-Leung's website at www.Asiawind.com and found his Hakka Page to be of value in discussing about the Hakka Architecture, viz. Phoenix Houses, Round Houses and Flat Houses. However, the Round House appears to be the most unique because it is shaped like a big circle of joined up three storeyed houses, with the front facing inwards into an open communal courtyard. The external face of the circle of houses is made of earth to withstand attacks by enemies. The whole circle may contained up to five hundred inhabitants. The center courtyard may have meeting halls and temples for prayers.

I tried checking the name in Mandarin but the best I got is Chengjilou 栋加 or Cengqilou 糷加 or Tulou 加. I wonder which of the three is the official name. I am sure Siu-Leung or Ming will help out. I will send Siu-Leung a picture for Asiawind and via Rudy at CTB Yahoo when I return.

Tin-Kay

I have downloaded the sound file. It is 3.xMB in .wav. I could not believe the ingenuity of the CHinese people 9000 years ago. The interesting thing is there is a extra small hole to adjust for the tune. (For details please read the article) They had almost exactly the scale we have today (and they probably set the tone, literally, for today's music). The accuracy of the pitch is incredible. They had to have the technology to measure the distance, to recognize the pitch and to realize how to blow and make a sound. This is blown vertically like a DOng Xiao, which is very difficult for beginners.

Again, I recommend everybody take a look at this paper and listen to the sound.

Siu-Leung

Thanks for your message on the 9000 year old flute featured in Nature (23.9.99). I was pleasantly surprised yesterday to hear on the early morning Sydney radio news that this flute, made from the wing bone of a crane, is still playable. Sure enough, you must have already got the news before any of us. Will be interesting getting into the website "Sounds of Stone Age" that you have discovered, to hear this flute.

Tin_Kay

Earthquake in Hakka is Ti Tong (as pronounced in the romanization way) WE also have the saying of Ti Ngiu.

It is a moment of grief and sorrow for many friends and brothers in Taiwan. It will take months to recover. On the other hand, I think the expression of assistance by mainland China is sincere and should be accepted. Hope this disaster actually bring the people together.

I was greatly surprised that Taiwan had such a strong earthquake of 7.6 to 7.8 on the Richter scale. I hope Ming and Stephen's family members are not affected by this calamity. The gesture by Jiang Zemin to help Taiwan is truly a good initiative for restoration of brotherly ties.

Is Taiwan in an earthquake fault line? Has Taiwan any such an earthquake before? As Siu-leung has pointed out, the greatest earthquake disaster was in Tangshan in 1976 in which one report put the deaths at 600,000. The Australian Prime Minister, Gough Whitlam was then around the vicinity when the tremours struck, and he had a terribly, unpleasant experience.

I read that the poet, Zhang Heng, was the inventor of the first seismoscope (earthquake detector)in 132 AD, in the shape of a bronze vessel with eight dragon heads, each with a bronze ball in its mouth. The base of the vessel had a set of eight toad heads with open mouths. When an earthquake occured, the respective dragon head would drop the ball downwards to its accompanying toad mouth.

I was told by an eighty year old Chinese gentleman that Zhang Heng in 138 AD was accused of a grave charge of spreading a rumour (bad omen) of an earthquake in the direction of Gansu, over a thousand li (Chinese mile) away. He was vindicated when news arrived later of the predicted earthquake.

Y.K. Wong wrote in "Unlocking the Chinese Heritage" that Zhang Heng also invented a bird-shaped weather vane one thousand years earlier than the Western church steeple weather vane. In addition, Zhang Heng produced an odometer in a figurine shape, sounding one drum beat for each li travelled, and one bell toll for every ten li. He also researched on eclipses and modified calendars and maps.

Further, he believed the world to be egg shaped cosmos with earth as the egg yolk, setting up a spheral globe with equatorail line and the equivalent lines of the Tropics of Cancer and Capricorn . Zhang Heng calculated pi to be 3.1466, whilst Liu Xin (50-23 BC) calculated pi to be 3.1547, Wang Fan (230-266 AD) at 3.1566, Liu Hiu (in 363 AD) at 3.1416 and Zu Chongzhi (429-500 AD) at 3.1415926.

Earthquakes records in China are said to be the most complete and continuous in the world. Yet, Science in later Imperial China was truly frozen out at the expense of excessive Confucian rote learning.

Tin-Kay

呼延思正 http://www.sina.com.cn 1999年9月17日 17:55 北京晚报

　　本报西安专讯 秦始皇陵考古新发现总是层出不穷。昨日陕西省政府发布新闻又一处陪葬俑坑被发现坑内出 土了造型奇特的彩绘陶俑和通体纹饰的青铜大鼎再次显示秦陵陪葬文物内涵富不可估量。

　　秦始皇陵园内的陪葬坑总面积1.3平方米是迄今为止陵园城墙以内发现的面积最大的陪葬坑在4个探方 的过洞底部出土了80领石质铠甲、30顶石质兜鍪此外还有3个石质马缰索残件及青铜车马器构件等文物。介绍这些 铠甲和兜鍪都是用质地均匀、颜色青灰的石灰岩石片和扁铜条连缀而成的。做工精细、工艺高超特别是小型鱼鳞甲不论形制 还是制作工艺都酷似汉代铁质鱼鳞铠甲堪称此批铠甲中的精品和珍品。负责此次考古发掘的专家认为这是中国考古学史上 的空前发现。

　　昨天来自中外百余家新闻媒体的记者被首次亮相的阳陵巨大富的内涵所惊叹。整个陵园以帝陵为中心布局 规整结构严谨。在帝陵四周已发现有90座大小不一的从葬坑。考古工作者对帝陵东侧的13号从葬坑进行了试掘露出了 排列整齐的动物陶俑群。与威武雄壮的秦始皇陵兵马俑军阵不同的是所有彩绘动物俑均造型生动工艺精致。考古专家指出 这是我国迄今为止发现的数量最多、最具有观赏性的动物陶俑群。在从葬坑内还发现了骑兵、步兵、动物等俑及陶、铜、漆 器类生活用品和兵器、车马器等其中还有国内首次发现的女武士骑兵俑。

　　发掘中还发现了帝陵南阙门遗址研究这是我国目前发现时代最早、级别最高的门阙。此次发掘还完整揭示 了汉代帝王陵的形制探明阳陵帝陵、后陵均为“亚”字形坐西面东这在西汉陵考古中也是首次发现。

Chinese culture has been sharing with the neighboring countries. In itself, Chinese culture is an integration of many cultures. The word "Chinese" is the collective term for 56 ethnic groups, each contributed to the rich culture of Chinese culture.

The notable imports are Buddhism from India (which now has little trace of Buddhism). The center of Buddhism has shifted to China and Japan. China got a lot of musical inspiration from the Middle east (the trumpet "sona", the string instrument "erhu", "qinqin"(banjo) are all from the West (Turkestan and beyond).

Chinese culture is a major source for the rest of Asia. Japan and Korea are most conservative of the Han and Tang culture of China. Their national costumes, music, language, writing system, administrative system are all adopted from China's system. Japan's government system is still using the names of divisions China used in the Tang dynasty. Vietnam used to be part of China and their spoken language is very similar to Cantonese. There are still a lot of Cantonese speaking Chinese immigrants in Vietnam. Vietnam also used Chinese characters until French occupation.

Indonesia, Malaysia, Thailand, Burma all have traces of Chinese culture.

Many of Chinese inventions were carried to the west (distant neighbor if you may) via the Silk Road, which was very active in the Han and Tang dynasties. These include Silk which was a most desirable item in those days. There was also exchange of spices.

You know my German is very limited and certainly not sufficient to translate any Goethe poems from original to make any sense. It would help if it is in English.

There were also the animal sculpture including the protective animal for the tomb of General Huo Qu Bing, the one who earned great honor of driving out the Xiongnu. The lion has wings on the limbs, depicting the swiftness and strength of Huo's military capability.

It is truely amazing to see the exquisite technology and artistry of 2000-3000 years ago. Of all sculptures, I am particularly drawn to the bronze technique of Marquis Yi of Zeng tomb 纯獼褂 (433 BC) in the minute details of bronze tripod and the bell set with incredible musical innovation. It is hard to imagine how to do it even with today's technology.

I recommend a book "Mysteries of Ancient China" edited by Jessica Rawson 1996. which incudes many important recent discoveries.

Tin-kay used GB to input the Chinese words. Turn your fond reader to GB and you will be able to read the Chinese words.

Tin-kay,

Dear Stephen, please let me contradict from the depths of my heart ;)) - although the moon being 'male' in German, it always had been a topic of romance and regarded as romantic and beautiful.

Here's a little beautiful poem of Johann Wolfgang v. Goethe, called 'To the Moon' (maybe Siu-Leung is able to translate into Chinese, because the 'picture' being very appropriate); BTW Goethe had his 200th birth anniversary these days (Aug. 29):

An den Mond

Fuellest wieder Busch und Tal
Still mit Nebelglanz,
Loesest endlich auch einmal
Meine Seele ganz;

Breitest ueber mein Gefild
Lindernd deinen Blick,
Wie des Freundes Auge mild
Ueber mein Geschick.

J. W. v. Goethe

As for moon/sun, yin/yang. It would be really interesting to do some social-linguistic research on this topic. My theory is, that it depends on the special relationship between moon/sun and the people respective. That is, how the sun shows itself to people or how is the way people experience it. I guess that peoples of southern hemispheres experience the sun as 'male' for its burning, 'cruel', frightening power, as they often suffer under it e.g. dying from thirst, loosing their crops etc.. Whereas the population of northern parts of the globe experiences the sun as a mild, warming mother, giving life and a possibility to survive. As far as I could learn of different cultures and languages, many northern cultures regard the sun as a goddess and the moon as a god, hence often (also in their languages) as female/feminine and viceversa (e.g. Amaterasu-Omikami in Japan, 'die Sonne'/'der Mond' in German, it's similar in other northern languages and also in Inuit, where the sun is regarded as the sister of the - male - moon). In Italian, Romanian, French, Spanish etc. the 'sun' is masculine, the 'moon' feminine; in ancient Egypt, Greek, Africa or even South America (Inka, Aztec, Maya etc. the sun was worshiped as a (male) god; the aztec sun god is commonly known as a cruel deity, ever-thirsty for human blood. The moon on the other hand, although in northern parts regarded as a 'man', is not cruel (maybe just a cool and distant watcher), but as a kind of 'lux consolatrix', the light to guide men through the dangers of night.

Alfred

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

Momentarily having some problems with writing BIG5 at Yahoo's club, I'm posting this reply to Rudy in this place.

Dear Rudy, as so often, your in-depth contributions are very interesting - and as dealing with etymological topics, quite naturally at the same time open for controversial discussion:
堵 (hei1) black: your source's theory seems quit convincing since 'everybody' is inclined to see the (devil's etc.) face with eyes in this 'picture' (as 'everyone' sees the gallow in characters like 陈或 - like I did when a child, and many Western people also do ...). Yet, according to other sources (Dr. L. Wieger, S.J.) the character 堵's etymology is different from others like 碍 kuei3 (devil, spirit, earthly soul etc.). This going back to a primitive called fu4 (a バ with a stroke on top), whereas 堵 being composed by the second of two ancient forms of the character for window  ch'uang1(containing three -like vertical strokes) on 'fire' (in its ancient form written with two characters  in vertical composition).
堵 - "Black. That which the  fire deposits around the  aperture through which the smoke escapes; soot; ┮饫ぇ︹ " etc. "In the primitive Chinese huts the smoke found its way through the window ..." This was similar in old Europe - e.g. 'wind-ow' (=wind eye, a hole open to the wind/fresh air). Hence: 饫 smoke, to fumigate, black (=the black vapour that rises from the fire).

ト hsuan2 (dark etc.) is said to derive from  juh/ru and  yao1(very thin thread): "to put  the thread  into the dye; dyed thread; green colour (later on , the black one, on account of certain Taoist theories)". (An ancient form of yao1  was composed without the  character on top but containing a dot in each one of the two cocoons.

ト猌 hsuan2 wu3 (dark warrior): the tortoise 纓 (together with the serpent 矰 standing for the north/black/autumn) was regarded as a very mysterious 而 animal, people did not dare to even express its real name, so referred to it as 'dark warrior' (Wolfram Eberhard).
I could imagine, in this expression ト indicates the (dark) region/direction 'north', whereas 猌 refers to 'tortoise' because of its 'armour' ヒ (shell) in the sense of "the armoured (mysterious animal) of the north".

Alfred

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

Dear friends and all, through Ming's hint I found a very good online dictionary IMHO probably being the best I ever found on the web: the site deals with linguistics and different Chinese dialects (including Sino-Korean and -Japanese) and much more (coming from Leiden Univ., Netherlands, a well-known place for sinologic stuff!).

Try and see yourself: http://www.chinalanguage.com/CCDICT/index.html

It is also best for those not having Chinese fonts installed on their computers.

Alfred

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

I find the new dictionary quite good. It can be reached from the "Dictionary" button in the Homepage.

A new website just came on line this week (September 1999), which is at http://zhinanpost.pacific.net.id/ . It is in Chinese. Let us follow it's developement, and provide support and encouragement, if appropriate.

As far as I know there is no fifth animal that goes with this group. You might find the phoenix on the top of a coffin while the fouor sides have the animals. But the Phoenix probably signifies the master of the coffin is female and nothing else. Same could be true for mirror.

Talking about five and mirrors, I observed something interesting in my DC trip. There is a bronze mirror at Sackler (or Freer?) that has 5 slanted T in a rotation form. I have seen 4 Ts in another mirror. But 5 T makes it more difficult to design compared to 4 and 6. This is the only time I see a design with 5 objects in a circle. I also don't have any idea what the T signifies (other than Wu Xing). Anybody?

Dear Ming, visiting the online dictionary mentioned by you I am having severe problems: after searching an expression (Chinese or English, BIG5 or graphic etc.), it would appear on the screen, yet just for less than a second and then disappears again leaving a blank screen. I tried it several times and in different modes yet with the same unsufficient result. Do you (or others) experience similar results?

Julian, thanks for your hints to Rosa to avoid 'shouting'.
As for addressing parents, relatives etc. in U.S. by their first names: I didn't know this being a usual custom today. In Germany usually parents still are addressed by 'mother', 'father', 'mom', 'daddy' (Mutter, Vater; Vati, Mutti, Mama, Papa etc.). But this seems being about to change slowly now - like many other behaviors etc. coming across the great lake.

Siu-Leung, is there a mythological animal representing the fifth direction of the windrose? Middle (yellow/earth etc.)

Alfred

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

Before I respond to your questions, I suggest next time when you send out emails, don't use Capital lock. You write an email as if you are writing a letter to your friends and you don't type it out using Capital lock. Just a suggestion.

1. To answer this one, I can say that it is definitely not insulting if you address somebody by the first name. However, just like in western culture, you won't address someone whom you are not familiar with by calling his/her first name. You would usually start with a Mr. or Mrs. Same goes to the Chinese. One major difference that I note. It is quite "ok" for western youngster to call their elders, say uncles and aunts, parents, teachers bosses by their first name. Usually in the Chinese communtiy, we would refrain from doing that. We would generally call them by their proper rank, say dad, mom, uncle, etc. The trend is changing though, for better or worst, as more Chinese are now educated abroad and such custom is acceptable to many more liberal people. Like many of my nephews and nieces, they call me by my first name and I am not offended. But that won't do if my son call me by my first name. :)

2. There is no doubt many Hong Kongers migrated to foreign countries after 1985 because they feared the turning over of Hong Kong back to China. However there are more immigrants who move abroad because they want to have better living conditions, better education, better opportunities and by a big majority for family reunion.

Stephen has answered this one. It depends on the individual. Some are superstitious and for these people, you better not send them a clock. But for non-superstitious ones, it doesn't matter to them. The best way to make sure is to ask the person if he/she minds receivng a clock.

The best gift is something that the receiver wants. Again the best way is to find out what he/she wants and then buy the gift.

Unicorn is a very popular mythological animal in the Western world. So you might like look at the Chinese version whici is called Zhi?

Instead of reading about the subject, visit the museum on line.
http://www.rom.on.ca/pub/unicorn/uni01.html is an interesting webpage at the Royal Ontario Museum in Toranto, Canada. ROM is a great museum with outstanding Chinese collections. Further, the curators of the Chinese departement have put up very interesting and research papers.

Take a look. If you are anywhere near Toronto, be sure to visit.

There are a lot more mythological animals than 4 or 5 depending on how you count them. The four I refered to symbolize the four directions

獵纒 qing long - blue dragon, East
フ bai hu - white tiger, west
Χ扯 zhu que - vermillion bird, south
ト猌 xuan wu - black warrior (tortoise-serpent), north

Ther are only four in this group.

Siu-Leung, the five(!) magic creatures are 獵纒 (green/blue dragon), フ (white tiger), Χ扯 (red bird), 纓 (tortoise) and ト猌 (dark warrior). As you mention, they do not include phoenix, yet together with phoenix and unicorn (腝棚) these creatures were regarded as celestial signs/omens.

As for 'hsuen2 wu3' ト猌, Rudy may be able to give some explanation with regard to the (18) constellations 8 to 12. As I'm pretty weak with astronomical stuff :((

Alfred

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

Rudy was right about the gender of feng/huang 获/澳 (male/female).Yet, nowadays people often refer the two as one animal or the former as female. Many female names inlcude Feng.

So, strictly speaking, the empress's head dress then should be called huang guan 澳玜 not 获玜. But then 澳 is not the pretty one as decorated. So the whole thing is quite confusing.

腜 Peng is different from 获 Feng and can't be related. Peng is a big bird, but it is still regarded as earthly. 获澳 Feng huang are heavenly animals. There is a passage in "Caigentan" about the distinction of chicken, crane, peng and feng.

Peng is now extinct, but it could have existed before with the word, even though it is rather exaggerated. It also appeared in Greek mythology as the big bird that fought with Hercules.

The phoenix is not the same as the feng in Chinese. But again, people just try to find a parallel for easy comprehension. I think the origin of feng/huang are equivalent to male and female peacocks.

From the Homepage, click on the "Dictionary" button.

This is not a toy, pocket dictionary. It has as many words as your desk-sized dictionary. The search technology is great. If your entry is English, it can output 4 ways: GB coded, BIG5 coded, Simplified or Traditional in GIF !!!

So even people without Chinese fonts can see the output.

It will make life easy next time someone asks a Tattoo question.

Try it out with a tough word or two. Bookmark the URL.

You are not the first person asking this question. Not even the second or third. You must be one of the many trying to enter the same contest.

Ming is right, apart from also being a mythological animal, the Chinese 'feng-huang' has nothing in common with the 'phoenix' of the Western world. It is not a symbol for resurrection or renewal ("rising from its ashes after having been burnt") like its European counterpart.
The (male) 'feng' 获 was already mentioned in a 琄 Ch'un-Ch'iu commentary (4th cent. B.C.) as an omen for the country being ruled by a good king  (other 'good' signs of heaven - fu-jui - with this meaning are: the female unicorn 腝棚 ch'i- lin, the green dragon 獵纒 ch'ing lung, the red bird, the white tiger フ peh-hu, the tortoise 纓 kuei and the dark warrior). Also Confucius ふ deplores that 'phoenix' doesn't appear anymore (obviously because the reign being bad and no prosperious times to be expected).
In later China 'dragon and phoenix' 纒获 symbolized the emperor and the empress, thus giving a female connotation to 'feng' (although the 'phoenix' generally being regarded as an animal of 'yang' 锭!).
Chinese scholars assume that 'phoenix' once may have been a deity related to the 'wind'  feng, because not only having the same name/sound (is it a mere homophone?) but its character deriving from the character 'wind'.
BTW, the original character  most probably(???) first has been written without the 'insect' ︿ ch'ung incorporated; the 'official' Li-sszu interpretation is partly different from this opinion: 眖挛羘"For, says the glose, when the wind blows, insects are born; 笆ネ挛.
All this is rather confusing: It's also explained that the original character for 'wind' had been composed by 'sun' ら, the 'primitive' p'ieh - i.e. a stroke from up right to down left - indicating 'motion' and fan2  'expansion/extension' - the latter still having a rather complicated explanation ...
On the other hand - still more complication! -, the character 'feng4' (phoenix) is said to derive from the original form of the character 'p'eng2' 狟 (like in pengyou), which originally represented the 'tail' of this fabulous and felicitous bird (in certain provinces pronounced as p'eng4 instead of feng4 !). By extension, the character 狟 then stood for the whole bird. Interestingly, the pronunciation was/is not fourth tone 羘 like in 'phoenix/feng4', but 2nd tone キ羘 : So the scholars aren't sure if the character 狟 maybe once stood for another bird called "p'eng2", now written 腜: it is a monstrous animal, interestingly having its parallel in the Western world: the famous bird 'rakh' or 'roc' (German: der Vogel Roch) of Arabian story!
After the creation of the new characters 获腜 (feng4, p'eng2), the old character 狟 was no longer pronounced 'feng4' or having the meaning of 'phoenix'. It changed to the meaning of 'friend', 'friendship'; for, says the glose, when the phoenix flies , it draws all the other birds after it, sympathy; hence the idea of affection, friendship, association; 狟尘ゅ获钩竤尘繦窾计珿狟囊

There are still many, many meanings of 'phoenix' in Chinese history and today's life ...

Yet, after all this, I am not too sure anymore now, whether or not the Western phoenix has nothing to do with the Chinese mythological bird - think of the bird 'rokh'/p'eng2 that I was told of when a child! Can it be, the four different birds feng4/p'eng2 and phoenix/rokh all going back to one single big flying animal of very ancient times...?!

Oops - shouldn't I better have posted this message at Yahoo's?

Alfred

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

Ming is right, apart from also being a mythological animal, the Chinese 'feng-huang' has nothing in common with the 'phoenix' of the Western world. It is not a symbol for resurrection or renewal ("rising from its ashes after having been burnt") like its European counterpart.
The (male) 'feng' 获 was already mentioned in a 琄 Ch'un-Ch'iu commentary (4th cent. B.C.) as an omen for the country being ruled by a good king  (other 'good' signs of heaven - fu-jui - with this meaning are: the female unicorn 腝棚 ch'i- lin, the green dragon 獵纒 ch'ing lung, the red bird, the white tiger フ peh-hu, the tortoise 纓 kuei and the dark warrior). Also Confucius ふ deplores that 'phoenix' doesn't appear anymore (obviously because the reign being bad and no prosperious times to be expected).
In later China 'dragon and phoenix' 纒获 symbolized the emperor and the empress, thus giving a female connotation to 'feng' (although the 'phoenix' generally being regarded as an animal of 'yang' 锭!).
Chinese scholars assume that 'phoenix' once may have been a deity related to the 'wind'  feng, because not only having the same name/sound (is it a mere homophone?) but its character deriving from the character 'wind'.
BTW, the original character  most probably(???) first has been written without the 'insect' ︿ ch'ung incorporated; the 'official' Li-sszu interpretation is partly different from this opinion: 眖挛羘"For, says the glose, when the wind blows, insects are born; 笆ネ挛.
All this is rather confusing: It's also explained that the original character for 'wind' had been composed by 'sun' ら, the 'primitive' p'ieh - i.e. a stroke from up right to down left - indicating 'motion' and fan2  'expansion/extension' - the latter still having a rather complicated explanation ...
On the other hand - still more complication! -, the character 'feng4' (phoenix) is said to derive from the original form of the character 'p'eng2' 狟 (like in pengyou), which originally represented the 'tail' of this fabulous and felicitous bird (in certain provinces pronounced as p'eng4 instead of feng4 !). By extension, the character 狟 then stood for the whole bird. Interestingly, the pronunciation was/is not fourth tone 羘 like in 'phoenix/feng4', but 2nd tone キ羘 : So the scholars aren't sure if the character 狟 maybe once stood for another bird called "p'eng2", now written 腜: it is a monstrous animal, interestingly having its parallel in the Western world: the famous bird 'rakh' or 'roc' (German: der Vogel Roch) of Arabian story!
After the creation of the new characters 获腜 (feng4, p'eng2), the old character 狟 was no longer pronounced 'feng4' or having the meaning of 'phoenix'. It changed to the meaning of 'friend', 'friendship'; for, says the glose, when the phoenix flies , it draws all the other birds after it, sympathy; hence the idea of affection, friendship, association; 狟尘ゅ获钩竤尘繦窾计珿狟囊

There are still many, many meanings of 'phoenix' in Chinese history and today's life ...

Yet, after all this, I am not too sure anymore now, whether or not the Western phoenix has nothing to do with the Chinese mythological bird - think of the bird 'rokh'/p'eng2 that I was told of when a child! Can it be, the four different birds feng4/p'eng2 and phoenix/rokh all going back to one single big flying animal of very ancient times...?!

Oops - shouldn't I better have posted this message at Yahoo's?

Alfred

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

To quote from my Random House Dictionary, it is the only bird of its kind, fabled to live 500 or 600 years ago in the Arabian wilderness, to burn itself on a funeral pile, and to rise from its ashes in the freshnes of youth and live through another cycle of years: often an emblem of immortality.. Thus, "rise from ashes" is often heard here and there.

In Greek mythology, Phoenix is the brother of Cadmus and Europa, and eponymous ancestor of Phoenicians.

My guess is that the City of Phoenix, AZ got its name from that.

From the Homepage, click on "Tattoo" and read all about it.

If you are lucky and happen to be at a Chinese restaurant in Houston, TX while a wedding banquet is in progress, you will likely see Phoenix and Dragon pictured on the wall decoration, as well as Chinese words in calligraphy as well.

Laura, your 'rooster' is most probably a 'phoenix' 获 (the 2nd of the four magic animals and the king of the feathered creatures). Together with the 'dragon' 纒 in a right-left position, it stands for 'husband' (lung/dragon) and 'wife' (feng/phoenix). So, I'd guess your ring refers to a relationship like that.

Alfred

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

It is not difficult to find the words in Chinese. You have two sources.

1. You can go to any Chinatown bookstore to look them in an English - Chinese Dictionary.

2. You can go to the homepage of this site and click on the Dictionary icon and follow some basic instruction.

If your computer can read Chinese, here is my translation of the two words:

Loss = ア 

You are the third request for answer to the same question: Li Bao is also known as Li Bai and Li Pao. Find your answer by scrolling back to August 17, 1999.

Read a bit about Chinese poetry while you are at it.

You can find it at my webpage on Cheng Ho at www.chinapage.org/chengho.html
BTW, his last name is Cheng.

My aim is to present to the young people (and the young at heart) especially those living abroad, fables and stories from the classical Chinese literatures. I think these are relevent and comtemporary today inspite of the ancient origin of the stories.
Many of these stories have parallel stories in the Western literature; so they should not seem strange to the readers.
I also want to tell the young readers that Chinese classics are not all dull, stuffy, and full of obscure principles.
I dearly love to hear your reactions, comments, and above all, additional stories I can include.

One of the contributing factors is the thinness of paper used, compared to the commonly used boards etc for oil paintings, or even heavy gauge papers for prints.

In some Picture Frame shops, a customer can, for a small fee, come into the shop and learn to frame his own paintings. This is not feasible for Chinese paintings or calligraphy!

There is no ite that can describe sufficiently for practicing the mounting of Chinese paintings. You need to read up some books, some referenced at my website. It is a technique quite involved.

There are three pronunication of this word in Cantonese.

1. It is pronounced as 恨 when it is referred to 狥 拆

2. It is pronounced as 窲 when it is used as 拆 焊 - smile

3. It is pronounced as ﹛ when it is referred to a plant.

The official speclling is DongGuan. I don't have access to any dictionary to verify it now. Still on the rodad. I know in Cantonese it is "wan" as in describing smile. For the name of the place, it is Dongguan.

I am from Dong Guan too (Dong Goon in Cantonese). According to the genealogy of the Lee clan, our ancestor moved to Dongguan in Jin dynasty as a regional officer. there are actually two DOngguan's in Jin dynasty. The other one is in Shandong, which I doubt is what the move indicates, because that was actually not in East Jin's area. Amazing history.

The content is very rich. Many items have not been shown before. I only saw the big thick book which is on sale now, but too heavy to carry (probably 10kg) at reasonable price of $40.

We need to have a representative in Washington DC area :) to report all these great events, which usually just go to DC

You wrote : 揥hether a person is Cantonese or not depends largely on where he or she lives and what language he or she speaks.?

I have great difficulty in accepting this statement. What makes a person a Cantonese, or Shantongese or Beijingese depends on his/her 虑 砮 ( I wish you can read the Chinese words ). I was born in Hong Kong, but when people ask me my place of origin ( not place of birth ), I will tell them I am a 狥 拆 ( Tung Goon ) yan. ( Tung Goon is a county in Kwangtung ). Whether I can speak Cantonese or not is irrelevant to this question. In fact, whether I have ever lived in Tung Goon or even been there or not is irrelvant. My ancestors established their roots in Tung Goon and that information is passed on to us from generation to generation and that is what makes me a Tung Goon yan or Cantonese ( used loosely ).

After I deleted all but one, you submitted a whole bunch of them again.

Kindly stop. You are wasting my time and my reader's time as well.

Same goes for Han-zi if we are talking about Chinese words. Japanese language borrow Chinese words to compensate for their deficiency. If you are talking about Japanese, Kanji should be used. But if you are talking about Chinese words, then say Chinese words or Han-zi.

Kanji - Hanzi - 簙 etc.

Dear Ming, a new month's message board, and again my problems reading the 'kanji' texts!!!! :=(( Please bear with all the poor and really true Mac users and give them a fair chance (BTW, I *hate* the 稬 brand - not the users!)

As Stephen pointed out, "Kanji" is nothing else but the Japanese expression for the Chinese characters also used in Japanese writing (written - like in Chinese - as 簙). In addition to these beautiful Kanji characters, they have to use also phonetic components in Japan to write the endings. This is due to the special kind of morphologic structure because Japanese not being a so-called 'isolated' language like Chinese. The 'agglutinated' endings are written in a very refined and aestetic syllabic system called 'Hiragana', in my opinion making great deal of the visual charm in Japanese writings. Hiragana seems having been developed from  and once was mainly used by women (Japanese also can be written entirely in Hiragana - or Katakana, another syllabic alphabet preferred by Japanese males: today Katakana is used e.g. to write Western names like 'Siemens' or 'Boris Jelzin').

Alfred

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

Thanks for clarifying the term Kanji for me.

Ian,

Stephen provided a very good translation for you. Since you said there are 7 of them, I suggest the following for your consideration:

The proper expression is, "What is the Chinese translation of ..."

Kanji refers to a form of writing Japanese language. It was derived from the written Chinese and shares many of the same words in both Japanese and Chinese.

For your project, I would like to recommend to you two classical novels. The first one is "Strange Tales of Liaozhai" and you can find a few translated chapters under the "Classics" icon on the Homepage of this site.

Another book is called "The Proclamation ( or naming ) of the gods and goddesses "   篯 . I am pretty sure there are translated versions of this famous novel, except I don't have a copy. If other readers have the information, they can post it here for you.