We have many options to create artwork with An Open Book Benefits Your Mind characters on a wall scroll or portrait.




This Chinese philosophy tells of how we continue to learn throughout our lives. It can be translated in a few ways such as "Study Has No End" or "Knowledge is Infinite".
The deeper meaning: Even when we finish school we are still students of the world gaining more knowledge from our surroundings with each passing day.
See Also... Wisdom | Learn From Wisdom


These two characters literally mean flower open. This word is also associated with Springtime, the beginning of something, or youth.
This word is often followed by "flower falls" (closes and loses its petals) which means "Things come and go" or "Youth comes and goes".
If you like flowers and the Springtime, this is a great selection for you. However, if you want the companion "flower falls" (flower withers), we offer that as a companion wall scroll or all together as a four-character phrase.




This is a complete phrase that lightly speaks of the cycle of life, or how things come and go in life. It is used as a metaphor to suggest that youth is a temporary state, which in time will pass.


This word is often used to describe the idea of opening the minds of the young or the new generation.




There are several ways to translate this ancient proverb. Translated literally and directly it says, "Open roll has/yields benefit".
To understand that, you must know a few things...
First, Chinese characters and language have deeper meanings that often are not spoken, but are understood - especially with ancient text like this. Example: It's understood that the "benefit" referred to in this proverb is to the mind of the reader. Just the last character expresses that whole idea.
Second, Chinese proverbs are supposed to make you think, and leave a bit of mystery to figure out.
Third, for this proverb, it should be noted that roll = book. When this proverb came about (close to two thousand years ago) books were really rolls of bamboo slips strung together. The first bound books like the ones we use today did not come about until some thousand years after this proverb when they invented paper in China.
This is a great gift for a bookworm who loves to read and increase their knowledge. Or for any friend that is or wants to be well-read.
Wall scroll artwork shown on this page is priced as follows:
2-3 characters $39.88 each
4 characters $49.88 each
After you select your calligraphy, our website will take you through the process of customizing your artwork.
Options for other mounting such as portraits are available for $12 less.
We also offer the services of a famous master calligrapher for a $40 fee on any scroll if you are looking for investment-quality calligraphy.
If you chose our famous master-calligrapher, you also get more choices for silk and paper colors and the option for larger artwork.
All of our calligraphy is completely done by hand in the ancient way.
When the calligrapher finishes creating your artwork, it is taken to our art mounting workshop in Beijing where a wall scroll is made by hand from a combination of silk, rice paper, and wood.
After we create your wall scroll, it takes at least two weeks for air mail delivery from Beijing to you.
Therefore, allow at least 3 weeks for delivery from the time you place your order.
When you select your calligraphy, you'll be taken to another page where you can choose various custom options.
The scroll that I am holding in this picture is a "regular size"
4-character wall scroll.
As you can see, it is a great size to hang on your wall.
(We also offer custom wall scrolls in larger sizes)
Professional calligraphers are getting to be hard to find these days.
Instead of drawing characters by hand, the new generation in China merely type roman letters into their computer keyboards and pick the character that they want from a list that pops up.
There is some fear that true Chinese calligraphy may become a lost art in the coming years. Many art institutes in China are now promoting calligraphy programs in hopes of keeping this unique form
of art alive.
Even with the teachings of a top-ranked calligrapher in China, my calligraphy will never be good enough to sell. I will leave that to the experts.
The same calligrapher who gave me those lessons also attracted a crowd of thousands and a TV crew as he created characters over 6-feet high. He happens to be ranked as one of the top 100 calligraphers in all of China. He is also one of very few that would actually attempt such a feat.
The following table is only helpful for those studying Chinese (or Japanese), and perhaps helps search engines to find this page when someone enters Romanized Chinese or Japanese
| Title | Characters Simplified Traditional |
Various forms of Hanyu-Pinyin (Romanized Chinese) | ||||
| Learning is Eternal | 学无止境 學無止境 | xué wú zhǐ jìng | xue2 wu2 zhi3 jing4 | |||
| Flower Open / Blooming Flower | 花开 花開 | huā kāi | hua1 kai1 | |||
| Flowers Bloom and Flowers Wither | 花开花落 花開花落 | huā kāi huā sà | hua1 kai1 hua1 sa4 | |||
| Open the Minds of the Next Generation ...To Stimulate Thinking | 启迪 啟迪 | qǐ dí | qi3 di2 | |||
| An Open Book Benefits Your Mind | 开卷有益 開卷有益 | kāi juàn yǒu yì | kai1 juan4 you3 yi4 | |||
| If you have not set up your computer to display Chinese, the characters in this table probably look like empty boxes or random text garbage.
This is why we spent hundreds of hours making images so that you could view the characters in the "An Open Book Benefits Your Mind" listings above. If you want your Windows computer to be able to display Chinese characters you can either head to your Regional and Language options in your Win XP control panel, select the [Languages] tab and click on [Install files for East Asian Languages]. This task will ask for your Win XP CD to complete in most cases. If you don't have your Windows XP CD, or are running Windows 98, you can also download/run the simplified Chinese font package installer from Microsoft which works independently with Win 98, ME, 2000, and XP. It's a 2.5MB download, so if you are on dial up, start the download and go make a sandwich. | ||||||
All custom calligraphy items are made-to-order in our little Beijing artwork-mounting workshop.
Normal delivery isjust over 3 weeksfor these handmade items.
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