The Insidious Kitchenware of Dr. Fu Manchu
or:
I Should Learn To Read Chinese
For many a year, I have had stuff in my kitchen with things in Chinese written
on them. But I can't read Chinese! So I'm always eating out of this bowl, and
wondering if the Chinese characters mean "dangerously high lead content".
But it occurred to me tonight: I have a scanner, and I know
an authentic literate Chinese person who I can email and ask about it all.
So I did, and then he replied...
Date: Mon, 25 Mar 2002 01:56:55 -0700
To: autrijus@autrijus.org
From: "Sean M. Burke" <sburke@cpan.org>
Subject: foody decypherment
Can you tell me what these hanzi mean?
Those are on the side of a melamine bowl I have.
And, if you're up to reading something much less legible:
that's off the side of a teacup I have.
Date: Mon, 25 Mar 2002 17:15:18 +0800
From: Autrijus Tang <autrijus@autrijus.org>
To: "Sean M. Burke" <sburke@cpan.org>
Subject: Re: foody decypherment
X-Public-Key: http://autrijus.org/pubkey.asc
On Mon, Mar 25, 2002 at 01:56:55AM -0700, Sean M. Burke wrote:
> Can you tell me what these hanzi mean?
>
Long Life: 
# A
>
Ten Thousand: 
# B
>
Boundary: 
# C
>
Without: 
# D
together, they form a common saying "Ten Thousand
(years) of Long Life Without Boundary", in the
order of B+A+D+C, pronounced 'Wan4Shou4Wu2Jiang1'.
> And, if you're up to reading something much less legible:
>
> that's off the side of a teacup I have.
It's
.
Everything Go with the flow will have flavour.
/Autrijus/