I spent Sunday looking around one of the local parks. Having taken in the hundreds of squirrels and noticed the state of the diseased Chestnut trees I came to the best tree in the park. It's massive and looks a bit mental and had a familiar wooden stake in front of it. I remember that stake! I saw it in Japan! In June! It's a Peace Pole! On further inspection it seemed to have no Japanese on it. The Japanese for peace is "heiwa" (like "hey ya", but a 'w') and is written 平和. I was confused when I found this written back to front, and thought my local council was possibly very stupid. It turns out that this is Chinese. Thus I am a bit stupid.
3 comments:
Have you been to Kew Gardens? There's a recreated Japanese structure used for silk production in the Bamboo forest, and near the Chinese Pagoda they have a Japanese gate with Japanese pines and a rock garden (kare sansui style) nearby. Oh and because I'm American and find this interesting, they also have a Redwood forest.
Thanks- I didn't know this. I shall have to have a look. And I think I'd find the Redwood forest interesting too!
I think Chinese do this just to make people who know Japanese confused! Whilst in Hong Kong I noticed that 'toilet' is backwards in Cantonese, not 手洗 but 洗手. I also heard that the characters for letter - 手紙, dont mean letter in Chinese, but toilet paper. Whether any of this is true... I dont know... I guess my holiday in China will be interesting if I use my knowledge of kanji to get by...!!
Post a Comment