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The Blue Lotus: Japanese and Chinese text

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yamilah
Member
#21 · Posted: 7 Mar 2006 14:38
Thanks for your answers!

上海 is Shanghai in Chinese and in Japanese ... translated as "upriver to the sea"...

Does it mean that Shanghai's river has antigravitational properties?
see also http://www.regit.com/regitour/china/intplace/shanghai.htm

Of some interest too:
shanghaiing = kidnapping.
see http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Shanghaied
igagli
Member
#22 · Posted: 23 Mar 2006 00:43
p12, frame 14 drawn on lantern 百順堂 - name of temple? or shop? -
marsbar
Moderator
#23 · Posted: 23 Mar 2006 03:09
It is a shop. :)
yamilah
Member
#24 · Posted: 21 Aug 2006 18:41
Please (Irene?) what does the green torn poster read, in The Blue Lotus, large frame, p.26?
I mean the one just behind a military, and that disappears on page 27.

Thanks in advance.
igagli
Member
#25 · Posted: 22 Aug 2006 08:16
Yamilah, p26 green poster:

西門 (West Gate)
取 or 職 ... 是 (p40,f3)
牌麗美 (RtoL Name of cigarette) (same as p32, f8)
marsbar
Moderator
#26 · Posted: 23 Aug 2006 06:21
The yellowish-green poster behind the guard box reads 西門 (romanization in Hanyu Pinyin: xi1 men1). While the two characters do mean west and gate respectively, I believe here they form a part of the three-character Chinese transliteration of the company name Siemens [Chinese: 西門子 (Romanization in Hanyu Pinyin: xi1 men2 zi3)]. The same three characters appear on the red poster on page 5 (C2/frame 9).

The torn green poster that is partly covered by Tintin's yellow wanted poster reads 取-something [English: to take (Romanization in Hanyu Pinyin: qu3)], which does not mean much until you see the poster on page 6 (C1/frame 5) that reads: 取消不平 [English: abolish unequal... probably unequal treaties: 取消不平等條約(Romanisation in Hanyu Pinyin: qu3 xiao1 bu4 ping2 deng3 tiao2 yue1)].

The third green poster is, as igagli has already mentioned, an advertisement for a brand of cigarette: 美麗牌 [English: Beauty Brand (Romanisation in Hanyu Pinyin: mei3 li4 pai2)].
yamilah
Member
#27 · Posted: 23 Aug 2006 13:59
Thanks marsbar and igagli for your detailed answers!

Is right to left writing common in Chinese, or should it be considered as a mistake?
igagli
Member
#28 · Posted: 28 Aug 2006 01:34
CJK(China, Japan, Korea) historic text order is: The beginning of text is top-right corner, 1st line is Top-to-Bottom, then Second line is left, and The end of text is bottom-left corner.
In Meiji era, Japan began to use beginning is top-right corner 1st line is Right-to-left. However, It is quite different from European Languages.
Therefore, In 1930's Both writing RtoL and LtoR is used for CJK.
After WWII, CJK decided to choice the present writing system. In addition, Korean decided to disused 漢字 and use comma and period, spaces splits into words.
marsbar
Moderator
#29 · Posted: 28 Aug 2006 03:36
Traditionally, Chinese writing runs vertically from right to left. (Single-column text may be written horizontally from right to left; e.g., text on horiztonal signboards.)

Today, the Western-influenced horizontal left-to-right style is common practice in China. Last year the government of Taiwan decided to adopt the Western horizontal style for its publications.

--
Off topic-ish:
igagli wrote: In addition, Korean decided to disused [Hanja - Korean term for Chinese characters] and use comma and period, spaces splits into words.

Chinese was punctuation-free until the 19th century when the full stop was introduced. Punctuation marks used in Chinese differ from those used in Western languages.
Nautilus
Member
#30 · Posted: 28 Aug 2006 05:21
Nice to meet you, Monsieur Marsbar. are you Chinese? You teach Chinese here? ha ha :)

i found out that you have a little mistake here. by the way, i don't have a Tintin book at hand, so i don't know which Chinese characters you are referring to. but you must have mistaken "秦(qin)" and "泰(tai)". they're different.

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