The Chinese Plum or Japanese Apricot er Plum

Translating plant names from Chinese into English can be tricky.

Possibly whoever chose PLUM to translate MEI either hadn't seen the fruit or was familiar with one of the varieties of plum that have golden orange flesh and a slight golden tinge rather than being deep red or purple.

MEI is PRUNUS MUME

Notice the color of the fruit. Its not very sweet and is used for making plum and other sauces that require a touch of sourness to counterbalance sweetness.

I have no idea if there is an equivalent Chinese fruit to our purplish plums. Perhaps the LI plum is sweet.

There's a wide variety of Prunus trees grown in China.

I suspect what caused the confusion is the color of the flowers which range from white to pink.

ENJOY

QUEENLY HANZI

The most famous or infamous Empress in Chinese history would be Empress Wu?

The Japanese had several Regnant Empresses who were more than consorts though often they achieved that rank as a "place holder" until a male relative came of age if there was no consensus allowing one faction and minister to serve as regent usually a Fujiwara!

IMPERIOUS REX!

IMPERIAL ROYAL okay not a fictional Atlantean prince but rather the character for white over the character read as jade or ruler.

White jade was regarded as fit for kings emperors and royalty and not just by the Chinese.

Artisans associated with the Indian Mughal court created  some very beautiful white jadeite vessel and other objects.

China's royalty valued necklaces of beads of white jade.

Royal wives and concubines - FEI

Fei is a word often translated as Princess but bear in mind it refers to someone who is bound in a relationship to another aristocrat. I rather suspect the radical tang form started with an aspirate p or it was something like that sound in Fuji that occassionally gets transliterated as a H so you see Huzi instead of Fuji in some texts.

TEA and LI SHU

The Character for Tea CHA in LI SHU script

LI SHU script is a reminder of a time before brush and paper. I found this on line. It was said to be a photo on a sign painted on a tea shop wall in Taiwan. I've noticed many street signs use a script style half way between Li Shu and Kai shu.

Strong but simple and does the job!

HIME Princess

Here's this week's Technozi ... a bit late again but I've been sick! Sorry about that!

note the 2 characters that make up the whole minister or court servant official plus woman!