I’m busy writing a lot right now, so I got to thinking about this, then I wandered past a red poster with
that crazy made-up character on it.
The one that is a combination of [i]jin /i and bao (treasure)
and has a few other wealth-related characters thrown in for good measure.
Seems to be quintessentially Taiwanese.
But I guess what peoples’ favourites are would depend a lot on what stage they are at.
Like if you’re just beginning you might like one that’s easy to remember,
or you might like one that has got a story to go with it,
like xiu (rest) - which Chinese say is “a man leaning against a tree”.
That’s the blighter.
Tough one for the calligraphy practice.
Another one I like is the ru (enter) above a rou (meat), which is in Hong Lou Meng but rather rude,
and not in my dictionary so I dont know how to say this one either,
but its not too hard to guess at the meaning from the context.
Another one I like is the ru (enter) above a rou (meat), which is in Hong Lou Meng but rather rude,
and not in my dictionary so I don’t know how to say this one either,
but its not too hard to guess at the meaning from the context.[/quote]
I always thought the more graphical characters are interesting… like 東 or 旦 or 嬲 or 嫐…[/quote]
Nice choices. I had to look up the last two!
This is probably a common choice, but my favorite character of the moment is 忍 (endure), and also 刃 (blade). Very 傳神, as a Taiwanese person might say.
My least favorites are the ones that are nearly impossible to write. 亞 and 惡 are tough enough, but 繩, 蠅, 釁, 龜, and 鬮 are just nasty. If you can read (or, crazier still, write) all of those without a dictionary, you get a gold star.
(I bet a lot of people have had to magnify their browser’s font size on this thread.)
[quote=“haokaiyang”][quote=“hansioux”]休 is a good one
I always thought the more graphical characters are interesting… like 東 or 旦 or 嬲 or 嫐…[/quote]
Nice choices. I had to look up the last two!
This is probably a common choice, but my favorite character of the moment is 忍 (endure), and also 刃 (blade). Very 傳神, as a Taiwanese person might say.
My least favorites are the ones that are nearly impossible to write. 亞 and 惡 are tough enough, but 繩, 蠅, 釁, 龜, and 鬮 are just nasty. If you can read (or, crazier still, write) all of those without a dictionary, you get a gold star.
(I bet a lot of people have had to magnify their browser’s font size on this thread.)[/quote]
a character i always have trouble with (and i went through 7th grade in Taiwan before moving abroad) is 羲, or characters based on it 犧曦. I can never remember the bottom part of it…
My favorites change as I learn more Chinese, but for now I like 鼎 ding3. It looks like the cauldron that it represents.
The character ,
larger version , pronounced biang2, is not in any dictionaries (hence the image file), but it seems to be found on signs in China. Here’s an article about biang biang noodles.
I was thinking that guy Charles who used to hang out at Mad Dog’s in Tsimshatsui in Honkers, back in the late 80s-early 90s.
The guy with the Davy Jones haircut who always wore a pinstripe suit and bigass bowtie and was constantly honking on a huge ass stogie.
Come on,
龜
is a very cute character, no? My favorite one actually since I first saw it on the highway, pointing to Gueishan near Linkou. It really looks like a little turtle… maybe even more so in the old seal script version:
And that is also one character that was really mutilated in simplified Chinese:
龟
The turtle head (no pun intended!) looks very fishy now:
魚
Sorry ladies, but my favorite Chinese character is the simple, graceful and meaningful 安 ān. “Peace” & “quiet” when the lady of the house is actually IN the house (have they got this back-to-front???)… “Safest” when the womenfolk are within, rather than beyond, domestic bounds… Interpretations could be seen as sexist… which is perhaps why I like this particular character, hehe…
[quote=“the chief”]I was thinking that guy Charles who used to hang out at Mad Dog’s in Tsimshatsui in Honkers, back in the late 80s-early 90s.
The guy with the Davy Jones haircut who always wore a pinstripe suit and bigass bowtie and was constantly honking on a huge ass stogie.
[quote=“Longfellow”][quote=“the chief”]I was thinking that guy Charles who used to hang out at Mad Dog’s in Tsimshatsui in Honkers, back in the late 80s-early 90s.
The guy with the Davy Jones haircut who always wore a pinstripe suit and bigass bowtie and was constantly honking on a huge ass stogie.
)
,
, pronounced 
