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The No. 1 Chinese
Invention:
Chinese Characters
18 December 2007
The ancient Chinese are certainly
one of the most inventive people in history, with Chinese
medicine, the block printing technology, silk cultivation, martial arts, civil governmental system, compass and fengshui, I Ching and Eight Trigrams, just to name a
few, all to their credit. Among them, one of the greatest
Chinese inventions will have to be attributed to the
Chinese characters, or more precisely, the Han Characters (汉字).
Thousands years later, along with
Confucious, Fengshui, Chinese medicine and many other
major Chinese culture aspects, Chinese characers were
imported to neighbouring countries, such as Japan, Korea
and Vietman, and became an important part of their own
official writing system respectively.
The following is an interesting
short essay by Chinese laugauge expert Mr Zhao Yuanren (赵元任: 1892 - 1982). It was composed with
Chinese characters that share the same pronounciation,
consequently, the essay can only be understood by viewing
but not by reading out.
石室诗士施氏，嗜狮，誓食十狮。氏时时适市视狮。十时，适十狮适市。是时，适施氏是市。氏视是十狮，恃失势，使是十狮逝世。氏拾是十狮，适石室，石室湿。氏使侍拭石室，石室拭，氏始试食十狮尸。食时，始识是十狮尸，实十石狮尸，试释是事。
Poet Shi lived in a stone house, vowed
to eat ten lions. As he couldn't find any in
mountains, he went to the market to search for his
delicacies.
It was ten o'clock in the morning, a
hunter who captured ten lions emerging. When the cage
opened, the lions began to fight, among each other,
with viciousness and vigour, until all breathed to
their last.
Mr Shi purchased dead lions, and
carried them to his dampened stone house. He ordered
his servants to clean the rooms, and sat down to
enjoy the feast of the lion meat.
Although his teeth were as sharp as
steel saw, the lion meat was as tough as iron ore. At
last Shi realised what he had just bought were the
lions made of stone and granite.
And
this is contributed by Chinese Netzens:
五十武师午时舞狮，误食;
稚逝智仕志试治世，制事。
At due noon, fifty kung fu masters
performed lion dances, and all missed their lunches;
Mature minded interllecturals try to
manage the world affairs, and end up creaing more
troubles.
And
how about this:
网吧尽是王八;
版主皆为斑猪。
Pre: Monk's Hairdo
Next: The Rape of
Nanjing
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The Highest Chinese
Visual Art:
Chinese Calligraphy
A
handwriting dedication in traditional style by
Chinese President Hu Jintao.
It is
known that in Briton, one's accent is viewed as
an indication to his or her social situations,
but in China, it is handwriting that does the
trick.
Of all visual arts in China,
calligraphy is considered of the highest order,
as it is able to convey rich messages with
interllectual depth that only written language
could achieve.
With its
abstract appearance, it opens to wide
interpetations of the author's perspectives, the
emotions, the personalities, the original
backgrounds, the past experiences, the current
situations, the future developments, and beyond.
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