FOX TECHNOZI

Next Sequence for the Year of the Dog  #FOXES #FOX

Starting with this revised #technozi #hanzi #kanji #hanja #unihan

An FULL COLOR Reward will be posted on my  Patreon based on this character !

CANG Green

Continuing on in our series on color adjectives we come to Cang

Copyright Julie Vaux 2015

CICADA

The Cicadas are starting to sing of summer despite the fires and rain

Copyright Julie Vaux 2013  

MIAO TEMPLE

Copyright Julie Vaux 2013 

As far as  I can make out from conflicting definitions in the references I have access to Miao is a word originally used to describe audience halls for officials and royalty and  now used for shrines tutelary temples and and Confucian temples. However Confucian "Temples" are usually compounds including study halls and shrines for deified scholars and ancestors of  local clans and sometimes shrines for local deities. I suspect it depends given the on and off hostility between some Taoists and Confucianists on how strict an interpretation of Confucianism is followed and taught at the particular shrine.

Possibly the best place to see Confucian shrines is now Taiwan or South Korea?

I've read but not seen of Indonesian  and Malaysian Shrines being called LI TANG which means something like Ritual Halls. 

Buckwheat is Qiao

Copyright Julie Vaux 2013 

Who loves soba ramen !? Did you know Buckwheat also known as Kasha is one of the oldest domesticated plants? Genetic and other evidence indicates that it started being grown as a deliberately planted crop rather than a harvested wild crop somewhere in Yunnan probably in one of the Lake Basin Valleys since its nearest wild relative is a plant that prefers an alpine habitat at middle altitudes.

In plain English probably a shelter mountain valley well below the snowline maybe in open woodlands or grasslands below the high  meadows and above cloud or rain forest.

Some one took seeds down out of the mountains and the plant spread from South East Asia up to Central Asia and then across Eurasia until it first appeared in Europe in the Balkans about 4000 B.C. It used to be planted to cereal and other crops cos the plant is an excellent nitrogen fixer enriching soils but this practise declined with the introduction of modern fertilisers.

Fortunately human fondness for soba and pancakes and groats and porridge using this grain means you can still buy buckwheat flour at supermarkets ( well happily mine has it) or soba noodles.

Do try making buckwheat pancakes as well as soba noodles at home!

Buckwheat pancakes work well with berries or red bean paste!

A Field of Buckwheat Plants

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!

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Elephant Xiang

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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 ...

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.

(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.

Technozi Calendar

Technozi Fans Friends Visitors and Followers

Please Share My RED BUBBLE TECHNOZI CALENDAR and other Red Bubble art including Technozi cards and prints with others.

Here's some of the images you can see on that calendar and on the prints and cards.

Beautiful Zi

I have a calendar featuring technozi designs up at

Red Bubble

I hope you'll visit soon and tell friends about.

Thank You

Dian Dot

Copyright julie vaux 2012

Enjoy Xmas

I hope my readers are enjoying the leadup to Xmas and not finding it too stressful?

I was looking at my google stats and found to my surprise many readers come from South Korea or Indonesia but few from China or Japan.

Wherever you are logging in form I'ld love some comments?

Now who knows enuff about cursive forms to guess which character this is?

There's a clue in the title two clues if you considerI used the abbreviated form of Christmas and what its first letter is? Enjoy Xmas.

The FAN

Copyright Julie Vaux 2012

The only references I could find to Sinovietnamese or Vietnamese suggest the word is phien or thien  but didnt state whether the word is used for folding or flat round fans.

Folding fans were actually developed by the Japanese and didn't become popular in China unti the Ming  Dynasty.

Oogi is the folding fan in Japanese and uchiwa the round flat one.

In Modern Chinese a flat non folding fan is a ping shan and folding fans are zhe shan .

BU Chinese Negatives Series

Copyright Julie Vaux 2012

Hot Words Four

My apologies if I posted this before !

I've been checking the prior posts to make sure nothing accidently stayed at the draft stage due to a technical glitch earlier in the year when I changed browsers.

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.