[Multilingual Monday] Hanzi Voltron
So Carl and I went to a Chinese buffet over the weekend where they had multiple decorations for Chinese New Year. I see one cartoon rabbit holding the character 福, "fortune" or "good luck". Even if you don't read any Chinese (or Japanese) at all, you've seen this character repeatedly on lamps, in restaurants, on freaky plastic cats with paws that wave back and forth, etc. But then there was another rabbit facing the opposite direction with THIS character:
"What ... the fuck ... is THAT???" I immediately borrowed a pen, jotted the character down, and went to my table, where I wasted a frighteningly large amount of time trying to look the damned thing up, to no avail.
"Honey," Carl said, "your food is getting cold."
"I HAVEN'T FOUND THIS DAMNED CHARACTER!!!!" Insert foam at the mouth here. Yes, I'm that bad.
I finally gave in and took a picture with my phone and posted it to Facebook. Of course who is the first (and only) one to respond? muckefuck. I know, you're shocked, right? :: laugh ::
It turns out that it's some kind of hanzi Voltron combination thing of 招財進寶, zhāo cái jìn bǎo, roughly "money and treasure will be attracted," or something of that nature. I could see the 寶 and wondered if I had to "break" the character apart.
Looking up the phrase brought me to this fascinating page on old Chinese charms, coins, and the like, and brought me to another "conglomerate" hanzi:
黄金萬, huáng jīn wàn, "wealth in plentitude." This was easier to decipher as the characters are, for starters, going in one direction, and it's clearer (at least to me) what "pieces" are shared to make the various characters. I find these combined characters, or 连字挂牌, to be fascinating; I'd love to see more examples!
When I first saw the initial character in question, the "road" bottom and "roof" top made me think of another character:
Oh biang. Are you a 连字挂牌 too? :: laugh ::
"What ... the fuck ... is THAT???" I immediately borrowed a pen, jotted the character down, and went to my table, where I wasted a frighteningly large amount of time trying to look the damned thing up, to no avail.
"Honey," Carl said, "your food is getting cold."
"I HAVEN'T FOUND THIS DAMNED CHARACTER!!!!" Insert foam at the mouth here. Yes, I'm that bad.
I finally gave in and took a picture with my phone and posted it to Facebook. Of course who is the first (and only) one to respond? muckefuck. I know, you're shocked, right? :: laugh ::
It turns out that it's some kind of hanzi Voltron combination thing of 招財進寶, zhāo cái jìn bǎo, roughly "money and treasure will be attracted," or something of that nature. I could see the 寶 and wondered if I had to "break" the character apart.
Looking up the phrase brought me to this fascinating page on old Chinese charms, coins, and the like, and brought me to another "conglomerate" hanzi:
黄金萬, huáng jīn wàn, "wealth in plentitude." This was easier to decipher as the characters are, for starters, going in one direction, and it's clearer (at least to me) what "pieces" are shared to make the various characters. I find these combined characters, or 连字挂牌, to be fascinating; I'd love to see more examples!
When I first saw the initial character in question, the "road" bottom and "roof" top made me think of another character:
Oh biang. Are you a 连字挂牌 too? :: laugh ::