Cool Chinese Characters

[pazu]

For me I like those Chinese characters with lesser stroke but with a deeper meaning. I saw people using very strange characters in their name, which I actually dislike. (e.g. 陶 "吉吉", why didn't he use 陶哲? It's the same character.)

One of my favorite characters is 如 (a woman with a mouth), it means "be like", but it has no obvious meaning in itself, I would prefer to have this word in my name. (But i SHOULD have told my pa when I was still in my mother's womb!)

[Guest samantha]

the words in the chinese names not exactly mean their own characters what you can find in dictionary sometimes, it shows the meaning inside the word. i think it's the same as english name, we can find the meaning of the each english name from the end of english-english dictionary. and some parents think the number of the strokes are also important. especially in Hk, taiwan and villages at mainland

[skylee]

The character "吉吉" cannot be shown properly here. Anyways, unlike pazu, I find such rare characters elegant (although this character is the same in pronounciation and meaning as "哲").

[skylee]

曱甴 (i.e. 蟑螂 aka 小強)

I do not know how these two characters are pronounced in Putonghua (they are "gat zat" in Cantonese). I don't even know how to type them (I copied and pasted them here).

Why they are called 小強

93年周星驰《唐伯虎点秋香》里，由于帮助唐伯虎顺利卖身进华府，被周星驰视为亲密一家人；(其后)星爷“卖身葬小强”

[cometrue]

曱甴 (i.e. 蟑螂 aka 小強)

I do not know how these two characters are pronounced in Putonghua (they are "gat zat" in Cantonese). I don't even know how to type them (I copied and pasted them here).

Why they are called 小強

93年周星驰《唐伯虎点秋香》里，由于帮助唐伯虎顺利卖身进华府，被周星驰视为亲密一家人；(其后)星爷“卖身葬小强”

yue(1) you(2), beacase in that film, the blackbeetle's name is xiao qiang, all the younger generation like zhou xing chi's film, quote his words often , so the saying is so popular.

im afraid the 曱甴 does'tn mean blcakbeetle in mandarin, at least i have never heard about it.

[Guest Yang Guizi]

I'm sure you racially-hypersensitive 美国人 will love these characters:

卐 卍

I think that in meaning they are 10,000 (万) or a buddhist "all things"

[Guest Anonymous]

I'm sure you racially-hypersensitive 美国人 will love these characters:

卐 卍

I think that in meaning they are 10' date='000 (万) or a buddhist "all things"[/quote']

That symbol has been used by Buddhism thousands of years before Adolf Hitler decided to use a modified, but similiar version of it to represent the Nazi.

[Tsunku]

Sorry, no shock value for this American. Most of us with any familiarity with Buddhism are well aware that Hitler wasn't the first to use those symbols.

[skylee]

Don't think the swastika was an original Chinese character. My English dictionary says the swastika was "used as a sign for the sun in ancient times". But you can type 卍 using Cangji input "NX".

關 於 卍 字

卍字不入經傳，惟釋藏中有之。釋家謂佛再世生，胸前隱起卍字文，後人始識此字;宣城梅氏不入字彙，自錢塘吳任臣作《元音統韻》末卷始行補入。

即此可以證明卍字的確不是中土的古字。不過卍字雖不是中土的古字，但是後來習慣上可以當作「萬」字用，卻也是事實。

現在可以確知者：（一）「卍」的意義同「萬」，（二）「卍」字是外來文字。至於外來文字所以為一般人喜歡借用的理由，大概不外二種關係:（一）兼取吉祥的意義，如上文所舉「自稱卍盧道人」之例就是。（二）兼取圖案的意義，如五代和凝詩「卍字闌干菊半開」等句便是。

Also, 卍字是什麼意思？

根據日本國士館大學光島督博士的研究，卍字本非文字，西元前八世紀時始見於婆羅門教的記載，乃是主神毗濕笯的胸毛，是稱為 vatsa 的記號而非文字，至西元前三世紀始被用於佛典。到了西元後一世紀時，又更名為 'svastiko ，本為牛犢頭部的毛髮螺旋相，演變成主神毗濕笯的胸毛相，後成為十六種大人相之一，又成為三十二種大人相之一。

總之，在佛教不論右旋、左旋，卍字均係用來表徵佛的智慧與慈悲無限。旋迴表示佛力的無限運作，向西方無限地延伸、無盡地展現，無休無止地救濟十方無量的眾生。故亦無須執著、揣摩卍字形相的表現是右旋或左旋了。

[Guest Yang Guizi]

Yeh, it's somewhat misused though--just type it into a search engine and see what misguided japanese neo-nazi crap comes up

[roddy]

By the way, the words which are made up of three identical characters are interesting, e.g. -

姦 (three "woman")

森 (three "wood")

品 (three "mouth")

鑫 (three "gold")

淼 (three "water")

磊 (three "stone")

轟 (three "car")

What about this one - does it count?

三

Roddy

[Quest]

焱 3 fire 垚 3 earth 晶 3 suns

[Quest]

I remember seeing a Protect the Environment Commercial that told people if we protect the environment we would have 森, if we neglect it we have 林, if we don't help the environment we get 木, if we destroy trees we would end up with 十 and people know they dont want that RIP sign.

[kentajidaxiao]

One character that would be popular in some circles in the West would be 囡 一 a "child" is a 'prison' for a 'woman.'

On the other side, you've got 奻 ('fight,' 'quarrel') and 姦 ('wicked,' 'treachery').

Me, I'm infatuated with 熵 一 the Chinese word for "entropy" being a poor 'jiong'* little guy in a hat trying to escape 'fire'. 曰 is so much better than 说 it's not funny, but that fight got lost when it became internet slang for some amusing characters we probably shouldn't write here. (Although the real b is also hilarious.)

Yi is pretty useful as an em dash in English text.

The Chinese 〇 is much prettier in some fonts than the Western version, just like the Chinese comma 、and period 。are stylin'.

*冏

[WestTexas]

History museums are good places to go for interesting characters. For example, 饕餮, a style of beast mask motif used on ancient bronzes. Also, each different type of bronze vessel had a different character, like 鼎, which is more common, but also ones like 簋 and others that aren't even known by some Chinese people.

[roddy]

I can't not post these: 曱甴, which I recently found on Skylee's profile. They just look so much like tanks from a 1980s handheld game. I want to start driving them around the screen and bouncing shells off walls and into my enemies.

[Hofmann]

Old thread. But my favorite character is 之. It's the most common character in Classical texts, and is relatively difficult to write well. It contains four different strokes and is structurally easy for novices to screw up. Yet almost all people who actually know how to write it write it pretty much the same way. This unanimous agreement is a great example of the 法 in 書法, which makes 之 a symbol of 法 for me.

[Glenn]

I was having trouble finding out what 曱甴 meant until I did a Google search and ended up on Wikipedia. It took me a second to realize it was the 粵語 Wikipedia. Then I felt better about not knowing or having remembered ever seeing 曱甴 .

Just found out it's read gaat6 zaat6*2 in Cantonese, and apparently yue1 zha2 in Mandarin, although no dictionaries I checked had it.

Source: http://www.cantonese.sheik.co.uk/scripts/wordsearch.php?level=0

[skylee]

Thank you Glenn for the research. The only problem is that we (or just I) can't be sure if it is 曱甴 (points down then up) or 甴曱 (points up then down). Most people use the former but there are some who claim to be the authority say it should be the latter.

PS - also take a look at this website -> http://win2003.chi.cuhk.edu.hk/hanyu/pinyin2.asp?py=gaat

[Glenn]

Sure thing.

Btw, for whatever it's worth, Wikipedia has this to say: 甴曱，通常誤寫作曱甴，係種唔完全變態，乜都食嘅昆蟲。

http://zh-yue.wikipe...%94%B4%E6%9B%B1

[Edit] And apparently 乜都食 is Cantonese for "omnivore", right?