Alternatively, browse terms in alphabetical order according to their Chinese Pinyin 汉语拼音
The feng phoenix, or feng huang 凤凰, which is often portrayed to resemble a peacock or golden pheasant, is the second of China’s Four Sacred Creatures (the others being the long dragon 龙, the qilin 麒麟 and the tortoise). Except …
In the oracle bone script, the earliest form of the Chinese characters, the pictograph ‘福 (fu)’ consists of a pair of hands holding a wine jar in front of a sacred ancestral symbol. It means that, if the ancestors were …
One of the most commonly used motifs that depicts household fowls. It has also been frequently used in pun rebuses with intended meaning of ‘good fortune’ or ‘good wishes’, as its Chinese pronunciation is ‘ji 鸡’, punning on ‘ji 吉’ …
The phrase ‘gua die mian mian 瓜瓞绵绵’ is a variation of a line from the poem Mian 绵 collected in the section of the Greater Odes of the Kingdom (Daya 大雅) in the Classic of Poetry (Shijing 诗经). It is …
Continue reading “May the male line in your family clan continue and flourish (pictorial allusion)”
The character 龟 gui for ‘tortoise’ is explained in volume 13 of the annotated version of the oldest dictionary in China, Shuowen jiezi 说文解字注 (Explanations of Simple Graphs and Analyses of Composite Graphs). There is a quote from Liu Xiang …
Osmanthus blossoms in autumn and is conventionally regarded as the flower of the eighth month of the Chinese lunisolar calendar. Its sweet scent is discreet, distinctive, and unforgettable, and has a legendary position in Chinese poetry and art. It is …
According to the oldest dictionary in China, Shuowen jiezi 说文解字 (Explanations of Simple Graphs and Analyses of Composite Graphs), the earliest version of the character for ‘crane’ is a composite graph consisting of a pictograph for a bird, the present-day …
Lotus flower is one of the most commonly seen motifs in Chinese traditional artworks. It is particularly favoured by scholars because one of its biological characteristics is that it grows out of mud yet blooms pure and untainted flowers, which …
The tiger has impressed the Chinese for being ferocious, valiant, and awesome. Numerous imaginations, legends, and images have been stimulated by the fascinating impact of this majestic beast on the nation’s psyche ever since antiquity. Shuowen jiezi (说文解字), or Explanations …
‘Dié 蝶’ from hú dié 蝴蝶, the Chinese character for ‘butterfly’, can be used to pun on ‘dié 耋’, meaning ‘octogenarian’ in the phrase ‘May mother live up to a ripe old age 萱耋’, or ‘dié 瓞’ for ‘small melons’ in the phrase …