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I am pleased that what I made, garnered such discourse and dialogue,THANK YOU ALL!
My linguist friend shared all this with his colleagues. Here is one's reply:
Carl,
Gordon Mathieson here. IFEL class starting April 1963.
I liked this discussion and might want to add something.
I had published a couple of years ago, along with my co-author, Hengjia Liu, (My grandson's H.S. Mandarin teacher at the time) a Young Adult novel to help teens understand, share and compare.
Titled Beijing to Boston, it features two teen girls on a year-long exchange program. Vol. 1 is set in Boston are with Lanhua Chang and friends spending time in US schools and life. Vol. 2 is set in China with Kayla Forest attending Beijing School and sees a good part of Chinese life.
So, at Chinese New Years in Beijing, the two girls prepare the decorations for the big holiday. Kayla takes on the task of hanging the Chinese character Fu over the doorway. She learns that thinking she mistakenly hung the character upside down, Lanhua tells her that she did it right and explains that Fu and Dao are convenient.
Here is what I learned through Hengjia. It means both ....that Fu sends out a hope for prosperity, but Dao implies that is has already arrived or will be arriving soon. My take on this is was it is like the so-called Law of Attraction that has attracted much attention.
Even in other spiritual or metaphysical groups, the thought is if you send out thoughts of prosperity and visualize yourself with wealth, the Universe gets it and sends it back to you with what you had wished for. A slight twist on this is that it has already arrived, and you will continue to have your wealth arrive for the upcoming year. This is a slight twist on what your interpretation is. I took it as a defensive act that if you don't send this thought out to the Universe, you may not have your continued good luck and prosperity.
Just adding a little different story. Enjoy the day. Stay Safe!
Gordon Mathieson
Bradford, thank you for the clarification on my paper. I have another few cards I used in on so now I know.
Very nice!
Thanks for the information, Bradford + friend.
Regarding the orientation as posted and translation, I have feedback from a friend of mine, Carl Masthay, PhD, a linguist who specializes in Chinese:
Brad,
This turned out very simple to answer. These are many variants of the Chinese character for 'longevity' (shòu, with a falling tone in Mandarin; shaû, with a low-register departing tone and an aspirated s in Cantonese). I assume that, like fú 'happiness, good luck' inverted, the ugly face (the third attachment) is similar in wishing as in the following explanation from Wikipedia:
"When displayed as a Chinese ideograph, Fú is often displayed upside-down on diagonal red squares. The reasoning is based on a wordplay: in nearly all varieties of Chinese: the words for "upside-down" (倒, Pinyin: dào) and "to arrive" (到, Pinyin: dào) are homophonous. Therefore, the phrase an "upside-down Fú" sounds nearly identical to the phrase "Good luck arrives". Pasting the character upside-down on a door or doorpost thus translates into a wish for prosperity to descend upon a dwelling."
So the ugly face could be saying 'May you have longevity come to you like an old person." I assume.
Please see the attachments [embedded below]. Send this to Jennifer Wallace via your other site.
Comments?
It was recv'd in a materials swap. I didn't know it was upside down:(
it was a larger piece 8x11 I use small parts to make it last longer.
RCB is ME my initials. the number is the one in the series 1-2-3-4- etc and as for the writing on the rice paper in gold I haven't a clue, I was hopeful that it was for good luck like the Dhrama doll itself is/
Im still waiting to put the other Eye in.
That's nice. Bravo!
Two questions, please i) what does 'RCB' stand for?;ii) what is the script in the background?
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