Do you know this character?

[Solerx]

I found a beautiful wall scroll. I would love to know what the scroll says. My character vocabulary is not very large yet, however.

Even just the first (large) character would be great. I recognize the heart radical, but not succeeding with the dictionaries.

Here is the scroll:

http://i78.photobucket.com/albums/j112/lunae9/DSC02898mod-small.jpg

And here is the first character:

http://i78.photobucket.com/albums/j112/lunae9/small002.jpg

Any help would be appreciated!!

[iwilberin5]

ha, these scrolls are good. The meaning of the word is to tolerate to endure. And the sentence in the scroll means " if you could endure at sometime, the wind is calm and the wave is smooth, if you could tolerate back a step, you'll see the clear sky and sea ".

So, in Chinese culture, we always use this phrase to encourage someone not to have quarrels or flighting with others, sometimes when you are patient or you don't fight to win everything, it might bring something good to you. Cheers!!

iwilberin5

[Guest Pipas]

忍

忍一时风平

浪静退一

步海阔天空

甲戌春 宣文

[Solerx]

Thank you so much! That is a good and peaceful meaning. Glad that I know now.

I ended up deciding to get two scrolls. Here is the other one, also beautiful.

The scroll: http://i78.photobucket.com/albums/j112/lunae9/scrollII.jpg

The first character: http://i78.photobucket.com/albums/j112/lunae9/firstcharacter.jpg

Any idea what it might say? Even the first character would be great if you happen to recognize it.

Again, much appreciated!!

[Don_Horhe]

The big character is the traditional form of 爱 (ai4) - love. What it says underneath is 爱是永不止息 (ai4 shi4 yong3bu4 zhi3xi1) - literally 'Love is never-ending', but you could translate it as 'Love is eternal'.

[OneEye]

So in traditional that would be 愛. And the sentence is:

愛是永不止息。

Just one character difference, but for clarity's sake.

[Ducie]

Anyone can read the left column of the black text (maybe a name?):

http://img411.imageshack.us/img411/509/59981194.jpg

Also an extra challenge to identify the characters in 3 red stamps

Thanks in advance!

[889]

The left column reads 丁巳年 文翰 "Dingsi Nian [1917, 1977, etc.] Wen Han."

[Ducie]

Thank you 889! So it's from 1977 and Wen Han is a surname?

[Lu]

Could be Wen is the family name and Han the given name, could be that Wenhan is the given name and the family name is not included.

Chinese years are numbered in various ways, one way is by assigning every year two characters, in a 60-year cycle. So every sixty years there is a 丁巳 year. As 889 said, 1977 was one, but also 1917, 1857, etc. If you know in what period the scroll was made, you know the year; otherwise, you can't be sure.