It’s time again to play What’s That Character?
Feel free to ask others what they think, though enlisting the aid of historians and calligraphy masters would count as cheating, as all of these examples are not from a museum or a calligraphy scroll but from a sign outside a building meant to be read by all.
Chinese character number one:
Chinese character number two:
And Chinese character number three:
OK? Ready?
Here are the answers:
How’d you do?
*** SPOILERS BELOW ***
If you got even one right, hái bùcuò. That’s probably as well as or better than the average person literate in Chinese characters.
Here is the entire sign, which will probably make things much clearer.
If you’re a Mandarin speaker and used to reading Chinese characters, you can probably tell what the entire sign says without too much effort. But as this exercise may help to show, that is not because most people can truly read all the characters but because they can fill in the blanks, as it were, when presented with adequate context. Yes, those are all written in seal script, not in a modern style; but seal script is all that is given on the sign.
I want to stress that this isn’t a sign for a historical museum or even the Cultural Bureau. Nope, it’s for the Xinbei City Government’s Environmental Protection Department, here in lovely Banqiao. Those used to the ways of Taiwan (or maybe just the ways of the world) have probably already correctly guessed that it was the director who thought a seal-script font would be a good idea. (See the news stories below for more on that. Although the reports are from a couple of years ago, I took the photos just a couple of weeks ago.)
Don’t forget: If you want to put Chinese characters or tonal Pinyin in your comments, use the encoder first and copy and paste the results into the comments box.
News stories:
- Huan[bao]ju ban xinjia — qiyong jinzi zhaopai, China Times, August 6, 2013
- Xinbei Huanbaoju qiaoqian — zhuanti liang zhaopai, CNA, August 3, 2013