Category
Writing Chinese
When I see Chinese calligraphy I have
a specific stereotype in mind: an old master with a long grey beard swinging
the brush and uttering the deeper meaning of the words on paper. Seems
my mental picture found its real life counterpart when I strolled Beijing's
Imperial Summer Palace.
Category
Writing Chinese
If I need something to lighten my day I
continue my studies of Chinese writing. Even simple words tell little stories,
which makes them easy to remember:
The Chinese word for man/person is "r¨¦n":
ÈË. It looks
like somebody standing there with legs spread (for an marital arts exercise?).
The sign for tree is m¨´ and looks like a tree with roots and branches:
ľ. Now imagine,
that you are a hard working peasant in ancient China and you get tired?
You would seek shelter from the summer sun by sitting or leaning under
a tree. This would look like: ÐÝ.
And in deed this is the word xi¨± which means rest.
Most of the little stories are as old
as the Chinese language. Some of them told today would make excellent material
for a discrimination law suite, but that is another story for another time.
Category
Writing Chinese
Languages that can't combine sounds
to form a new word face interesting challenges when expressing new concepts.
Computer has been translated into "electronic brain" and computer
trainer into "teacher of the electronic brain": µçÄÔ½²Ê¦. The
term Blog, which is pretty new, has a nice symbol and meaning: Íø¼Ç. Records
(or Memories) of the net. So taken literally it means: Blogs are the memory
of the internet. How thoughtful.
Category
Writing Chinese
I'm
studying Chinese writing for a while. Not very succesful but steady. Since
I'm bad im memorizing things, I need reason, structure and the story where
things come from. When looking at the Chinese character for "I"
(wo) I was puzzled: The character is composed out of two ancient weapons
(they look a bitlike Klingon swords) clashing onto each other.
The Chinese codified (or would I better
say painted) thousands of years ago what is one of the deep insights in
personality. There can't be a "I" without a "You".
Only the dialog or conflict with someone perceived outside of us created
our own awareness of I. If there is no interaction, there won't be an "I".
So our communcation shapes our personality more profund than we commonly
perceive.
Happy talking!
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