We found this site in the week, which we were all having a laugh at, dedicated to the misuse of Chinese characters in western culture.
Ever since I showed this round the office people have wanted their Chinese stuff translated. Here’s one of the steve’s who wants to know what his tee shirt says.
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4 comments:
These are three signs of the Chinese zodiac; tiger, ox and ram respectively. Personally, I'm a ram.
Thanks for that. I'm a ram too as it happens.
they are not Chinese zodiac, as tiger is 虎, ox is 牛 and ram is 羊
instead, they're the characters used in the Chinese Agriculture Calendar.
there are total 12 such characters of a kind, which are called "地支" (pronounced as "di-zhi" in Mandarin)
子 丑 寅 卯 辰 巳 午 未 申 酉 戌 亥
It can be combined with 天干 (pronounced as "tian-gan" in Mandarin) to represent years or used independently for hours in a day.
Normally:
子 = 23:00-24:00 & 00:00 - 01:00
丑 = 01:00 - 03:00
寅 = 03:00 - 05:00
卯 = 05:00 - 07:00
辰 = 07:00 - 09:00
巳 = 09:00 - 11:00
午 = 11:00 - 13:00
未 = 13:00 - 15:00
申 = 15:00 - 17:00
酉 = 17:00 - 19:00
戌 = 19:00 - 21:00
亥 = 21:00 - 22:00
In summer time, it should be shifted for 1 hour.
You may take a look at this
http://xml.ascc.net/en/utf-8/calendar.html
btw, i'm from Hong Kong.
Thanks for that. Steve is at least happy that it doesn't say "stupid tourist" or anything worse. Clive has got a t-shirt he wants translating when I get round to photographing it, with a lot more characters on.
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