Category Archives: handwriting

Tiger Couplets: New Year New Door Decor

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Out and about in Taipei over the new year, I spotted quite a lot of Year of the Tiger couplets, some printed, some more original. Some of them even gave an insight into the political persuasion of the inhabitants.

This couplet was distributed by Taipei Mayor Ko Wen-je (柯文哲), chair of the Taiwan People’s Party, and it was one of the main rivals to the one issued by President Tsai Ing-wen and Vice President Lai Ching-te. If you’re a Ko-fen (柯粉/a fan of Ko Wen-je) or just fancy a few political discussions in your lobby with neighbours of different political stripes, you can print it yourself at the Taipei City gateway here. The Chinese word for “tiger” (虎 hu3) is a near-homonym for 「褔」 (good fortune/fu2), especially in Taiwanese-accented Mandarin (台灣國語) in which the “h” sound is often pronounced as “f”. So this couplet is a play on this, with the first two characters having the dual meaning of “tiger pouncing” and “a jump in wealth.”

President Tsai volleyed with this snazzy design 「福運旺來」 (again, good fortune also hints at its near homonym in tiger):

The couplet on the right of the doorway below reads: 「事業興旺」 (asking for success in career), while on the right panel there is another tiger couplet.

On the left panel of the door there are some quite cool examples of compound characters (合體字):

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How do you say we’re fixing the road surface in fancy? 「路面銑鋪」

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I came across these spray-painted messages on the road on the way to my local 7-11 last night. Messages sprayed on to the street are common in Taiwan, and they can be written by car/motorbike tow trucks telling people what number to call to get their vehicle back or construction companies or the city government telling people not to park in the street as construction is about to take place.

I could see that it said 「路面xx勿停車」 (“road surface XX, don’t park), but I was a little puzzled by the third and fourth characters, as they both looked like they had 「金」 as radicals. I assumed that as they were repaving the road, it’s likely that the second one was 「鋪」 (to pave), but I’d never seen the character 「銑」 before. So I wandered down the street a bit further to see another of the messages:

The 「鋪」 was a bit clearer in this pic, so I tried to look up the characters 「銑鋪」 (xiǎnpū), and came across this old video from the China Times, suggesting that I wasn’t the only one to be puzzled:

According to this video, the original meaning of 「銑」, milling, has been extended here, to mean “to roll flat/steamroll.” It seems to be a more technical way of referring to resurfacing roads, but a more common and colloquial way to say this is 「路面翻修」 (lùmiàn fānxiū).

Passive Aggressive Notes: Neighbourly Nagging to Assert Dominance

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As I’ve mentioned before, one of my neighbours is a prolific note writer who comes up with all sorts of imagined scenarios, from axe-wielding maniacs sneaking into the building to accusing people of chucking tapioca onto their awning and calling the fire brigade when anyone in a 400m radius lights a candle. A new neighbour has moved into the building, so the note writer has decided to show them who is boss, with these beautiful scrawls:

Despite their previous anger at people closing the door too loudly, the neighbour in question is continuing their tirade on the risks of the door ever being open at all. The new neighbour doesn’t have a buzzer, so has to come down the stairs every time they order food or (heaven forbid) have friends coming round.

請隨手關門，不要影响（響）別的住戶安全，如果發生意外，請負全責，後果自負。

Please close the door after you, so as not to affect the safety of other residents. If an incident happens, please take full responsibility. You’ll have to face the consequences.

One thing to notice is the abbreviation of the character 「 響」 to 「响」, the simplified character, which goes to show how often the more complex characters are abbreviated in Taiwan. One note is never enough though:

新搬來的住戶請注意我們公寓沒有聘請任何清潔人員。此處只能丟棄回收廣告紙，由好心住戶順便幫忙丟掉，不可以丟紙箱、塑膠袋、請自重。

The new tenant should be aware that our apartment block hasn’t hired any cleaning staff. Here you can only throw away recycled advertising leaflets, which one kind-hearted resident [clearly a self-reference] helps to throw away. It is not permitted to throw away cardboard boxes or plastic bags here. Please behave with more decorum.

Taiwanese Grumbles in Graffiti: Give Us Some Cash

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Saw this new piece of graffiti on the border of the Zhongzheng and Wanlong Districts of Taipei. It reads 「民不聊生」 (“The people have no way of making a living”) and across the top in a slightly different shade (possibly added by another person?) is 「發現金」 (“Issue Cash”), suggesting the government give out cash for stimulus.

Taiwan is back in heightened Level 2 restrictions, meaning that while restaurants and other venues are gradually opening up, bars and clubs and many entertainment venues are still closed. Not going to jinx it, but cases have been down for several days now, so hopefully life can return to normal soon and business owners will be able to start making some money again.

The Green Crown Prince Cheng Wen-tsan of Taoyuan

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The fun thing about Taipei is that political opinions are often very in your face, whether it is a taxi driver going on about how the ruling party is driving the economy into the ground or a random bit of graffiti scrawled on a traffic box about the Taoyuan Mayor that piques your curiosity as to the context:

太子鄭文燦
Crown prince Cheng Wen-tsan

The frame of reference for this fantastic piece of “artwork” dates back to the words of Taipei City Councilor Lo Chih-chiang (羅智強) back in May. He suggested that there were double standards going on, in that the 1st Mayor of Taoyuan Cheng Wen-tsan (鄭文燦) had received special treatment when it came to the Novotel outbreak of coronavirus because of his favorable position in the ruling Democratic Progressive Party, as Lo put it he is a 「綠朝太子」 “the crown prince of the Green dynasty” – here green is a reference to the colors of the DPP vs the blue of the opposition KMT (Lo’s party). The accusation is that Cheng was able to push all of the responsibility on to the central government because of this special treatment, while other mayors got lambasted for doing the same. Lo then went on to taunt Taipei Mayor Ko Wen-je (柯文哲), asking him if he was jealous of this special treatment (an attack based on Ko’s tumultuous past relationship with the DPP).

Ko–who always seems to have a quip at the ready–.replied that if he’d pushed all the the responsibility to the central government, the situation would have been f*cked long ago and he doesn’t have it as easy as some (pointing no elbows at Cheng I’m sure).

When ranting on Facebook just doesn’t do it for you anymore…

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Saw this anti-American rant on my way to the shops today. Clearly someone’s out for attention. As the punctuation is a bit of a mess, I’ve tried to interpret the most likely meaning, but welcome any corrections.

如果美國認為台灣是善的力量.是亜洲自由民主燈塔.就該給予對等公平待遇而不是派衛生部長來.我們就吞下高端。全民抵制高端抗議美國強力干預我國疫苗政策疫情下不暫停台美貿易談判.抵制高端.抗議美國醫藥霸凌台灣抗議不公平貿易.抗議以生命權交換其它利益認清偽善美國

If the US thinks Taiwan is a force for good, and a beacon of freedom and democracy in Asia, they should treat us as equals. We shouldn’t accept the Medigen vaccine, just because they sent the health secretary. Everyone should resist Medigen and resist the US strong-arming its way into interfering in domestic vaccine policy and not halting Taiwan-US trade negotiations during the pandemic. Boycott Medigen, resist US medicine’s bullying of Taiwan, resist unequal trade, resist the right to life being exchanged for other interests; See the fake kindness of the US for what it is.

To be honest, this kind of rant is not uncommon on social media platforms in Taiwan, I just thought it was interesting to see it posted over a traffic box.

I also thought it was slightly ironic that the poster used the Japanese variant of 「亞」(亜), given that people with this kind of anti-American stance, are usually very anti-Japan too.

The views expressed above are just an observation, and do not represent my own views.

DIY Variants: Excellent!

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I spotted this intriguing-looking character on a signboard on a road I have walked down a million times before. It looks like a cross between 「優」(yōu/excellent) and 「收」(shōu/to receive):

Google tells me the name of the company–which sells office supplies and prints name cards–is 「猷美」(yóuměi), so the other two characters on the sign seem decorative. If anyone has solved this mystery before or has any suggestions, let me know.

I tried the variant dictionary already and there does seem to be a wide variety of different forms of 「優」, none I saw though replaced the 「心」and 「夂」 with a 「收」though:

Update: Thanks to jdmartinsen for resolving the mystery, stating that the 「丩」 is likely a stylized 「忄」:

劉炳森寫的優

The 「優」 in the sign seems to resemble the style of calligrapher Liu Bingsen, as shown in this calligraphic database.

You can see that the 「有」 also employs a variant form, with 「𠂇」 written 「㐅」, similar but not identical to one of the variants listed below:

Another sign in a shop two streets away had this (rather more common) variant of 「價」(jià/price):

This simplified version of 「價」 is also the Japanese kanji version of the character, 「価」(か/ka). Cool to see the use of variants in action and perhaps Japanese usage influencing choice of shorthand in Chinese.

Passive Aggressive Food Fights in the Workplace: Don’t f*ck with my biandang! + heart emoji

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note in Chinese requesting that people do not turn off the machine

If you work in an Asian office, a biandang/lunchbox/bento warmer is a standard bit of kit. Lots of people have metallic lunchboxes which you can put inside to keep them warm until lunchtime.

There has been an escalating passive-aggressive argument lately in my office, as someone has been turning off the warmer as soon as they take their own lunch, leaving the remaining coworkers with lukewarm lunches, which is the eighth of the seven deadly sins (James 2:15-17).

I’m a microwave kind of guy, so haven’t been involved in the tussle, but the note was posted back in January without the highlighted text or scrawl down the side:

敬請最後一位使用者關掉即可，感謝！（想吃熱便當 heart emoji)
以上 2021.01.21
Please only turn off the machine if you are the final person to use it! (I want a hot lunch)
Yours Jan 21, 2021

Since then, while innocently waiting for the microwave to finish, I’ve noticed the door ajar and the machine off a few times with quickly cooling biandangs still inside.

This led to the escalation down the side and the addition of dots and highlighted text:

*不要再關啦！2021.2.8
Stop turning it off! Feb. 8, 2021

I’m sure the culprit is someone with good intentions but over-wrought anxiety about the biandang warmer never being turned off and consuming the whole building in flames, however, it does seem like a bit of a dick move to continue to turn it off.

Out and About with Variants in Taiwan

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I’m always interested to see how variants of standard Chinese characters are still used in everyday life, whether it’s handwriting, signs or an author making a stylistic choice.

I spotted this beauty at a petrol station in Taitung. You can understand the reason for the simplification of the top of the character given the chunky font required by this kind of paint:

This character is 「嚴」(yán/strictly), but the top has been simplified along the same lines as the simplified version of the character 「严」. It retains the 「敢」 of the traditional character though:

You can look up these kinds of variants in the variant dictionary here.

Funnily enough there is a standard 「嚴」 on the sign to the left of the one circled.

Have you ever caught a p̶o̶k̶e̶m̶o̶n̶ Chinese character variant in the wild? Submissions welcome!

Neighbourly Notes: Don’t Drive the Light

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My note-writing neighbour (you can see their doctoral thesis here) has been at it again, although, to be fair, this doesn’t rank up there with their more passive-aggressive notes (although I would have appreciated a 「請」 thrown in there somewhere). I almost identified with them on this note, as it represents a phenomenon I often encounter when learning other languages, the tendency to assume that a specific usage of a multipurpose verb in your language can apply to all the usages of the verb in your target language, illustrated brilliantly below:

111223

壞了，一直在閃、很危險、不要開。 Don’t drive.

Broken, it keeps flashing, it’s dangerous, don’t turn it on.

「開」 in Chinese means “to start” or “to turn on”, in conjunction with 「車」 it can also mean “to drive”. So I’m guessing they googled “不要開” and got “Don’t drive.” I guess the solution is to always search for the terms you Google translate to see if it matches the idea you were going for and is used commonly in the target language. The only example I can think of going the other way is the tendency of foreigners to use 「是」 for adjectival phrases in Chinese, 「我是熱」, for example, as an overly literal translation of “I am hot.” Can you think of any examples that fit the brief more accurately?

My neighbour clearly hasn’t been taking notes since I corrected their previous note which was either on door closures or dog euthanasia:

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