Thursday 31 January 2013

HU pot

#unihan #ceramics #chinese #japanese #pot #vessel
julie vaux copyright 2013 2016

Next week Snake signs for Asian New year !

Monday 28 January 2013

Mukuge


So what's this photo got to do with Hanzi?

copyright julie vaux 2013 

Well its a Hibiscus  and maybe even judging from images I  consulted the East Asian Hibiscus Syriacus sometimes called a Rose of Sharon in English and Mukuge in Japanese.

I think this purple flower may be a modern breeders development though?

The Mukuge is called Mugunghwa or GEUN or KUN in Korean and JIN in modern Chinese.

Perhaps it says something about the variety of colors various types of hibiscus come in that the phonetic part of the character below refers to  yellow loess clay?


copyright julie vaux 2013

There's also a haiku by Basho referring to this plant which apparently horses as well as lovers of herbal teas find tasty.

Michi nobe no mukuge wa uma ni kuware keri.


Finally a reminder you are welcome to copy any images featured in this blog for educational and research  purposes but do include a link back or shock me and use the paypal tip jar? Electricity isnt free and I do have wireless modem broadband costs?






Tuesday 22 January 2013

kumpuu ya

#haiku #shiki #romaji #unihan

Kumpuu ya is the first line of a haiku by SHIKI.

It reads like this in Romaji  kumpuu ya senzan no midori tera hitotsu

Buchanan translates kumpuu as summer breeze but in the kanji its KUN plus FUU.

Something like fragrant wind?

fragrant wind ! 1000 mountains of green temple single / only one

Shiki seems to  have very deliberately chosen a certain word to express fragrance.

The Kun reading is kaoru or kaori also written by a different character but take a look at the hanji of the text.

Copyright Julie Vaux 2016 

Grass over smoke literally!

So is the fragrant wind coming from the green mountains or the temple?

And note its a single temple perhaps a very small one away up in the mountains not one of the greater monastic complexes but somewhere unnamed and genuinely remote deep in the mountain ranges of Japan's highlands?

Whether you're Japanese or Chinese or anyone who likes haiku studying hanji  really helps to deepen one's understanding and appreciation tho I'ld be a lot more fluent than my mere smattering in modern asian languages if I spent less time reading classical verse?!


Support me via PayPal.me/JulieVaux 


Or PATREON PLEDGE ME




N.B. Patreon Pledgers at a higher level will be eligible for an ebook I'm compiling of some of my prior technozi posts. Wanna pledge and suggest a topic?


Monday 21 January 2013

XUN Fragance


Hey readers please read the following post about how this hanzi is used in a famous haiku! Yes I have used different fonts this time too!

copyright julie vaux 2013




Wednesday 16 January 2013

100 POSTS!

I've reached 100 Technozi posts!

A big thank you to my few followers readers and fans so far.

My plans for 2012 the year of the Snake.

Well yes some posts by words for Snake and also more radicals.

I also study ceramics so I'll be posting explaining the name of various glazes.

Plus other topics and images of interesting calligraphy and fonts and modern typography as I find them.

The year of the Snake starts February 10.

I'm working on a New Year's Greeting Card!

Tuesday 15 January 2013

Elephant Xiang


copyright julie vaux 2013

Scribal Note

 I found out AFTER I finished the card there's another Austroasiatic word used in Vietnamese for elephant.

So a request and reminder If you know of any words in Chinese dialects or Asian languages that I couldn't find please send them to me via the comments box or email? I go thru every major Internet resource and ALL my PRINT reference books but sometimes ...

Monday 14 January 2013

Rainbow Textured Zi

Inkscape has several texture filters as well as three different rainbow filters.

I combined  three of them to get a watercolor or dye on silk effect ?



J. Vaux 2012 










Friday 11 January 2013

More about SHU

If you've come across this post after a random search please refer back to the post just before this one.


Tuesday 8 January 2013

Radical Two


A look at the second radical.






Now please please look at the follow up post with extra notes about SHU .

The modern form of gun requires Unihan  68cd.








Saturday 5 January 2013

A new logo for this blog

Please let me know what you think of this as a possible new logo header jpg for this blog?


This image was created using Inkscape .

I combined rainbow with a couple of other filters but stuck to Black and a simpler raised effect for the bottom half.

Why black under rainbow?

That old dictum about black ink producing the five colors if used skilfully?

So what do you think change the logo or not?


Thursday 3 January 2013

(RE) Introducing Technozi

Just a explanation and reminder of what Technozi is about:

Primarily HANZI the chinese characters used to Write Sinitic dialects and other East Asian languages like Japanese Korean and formerly Vietnamese.

I've blogged on Calligraphy typography fonts unihan dialects and occassionally diverge with posts on  other Asian scripts and Asian culture and history in general.