This is the simplest way to write dance in Chinese, Japanese Kanji, and old Korean Hanja. It can also be translated as to dance, to wield, to brandish or to circle. It's meaning of dance is more clearly defined in Chinese than it is in Japanese (see our two-character word for dancing if you want to be absolutely clear in both languages).
Dance / Dancing
wǔ dǎo butou 무도
This is the clearest way to express the art of dancing in Chinese, Japanese and Korean. If you are a dancer, or love the art of dance, this is the calligraphy selection for you.
Dance (Japanese only)
buyou 무용
This is the most proper term for dance or dancing in Japanese.
The first Kanji means "dance", and the second means to jump or leap. Together, they are just a strong way to say "dance" (the second Kanji just clarifies the first - nobody will translate this as "dance jumping").
Harmony (Music)
tiáo hé chou wa 조화
This word means harmony in Chinese and Japanese. It should be noted that this is the musical version of harmony.
Note: In English, we use the same "harmony" for multiple meanings. However, Japanese and Chinese are more specific in many cases.
Note: The first character suggests a musical meaning, and can also be used to describe warriors marching in perfect cadence (in step). The second character carries the meaning of harmony itself.
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 a few weeks for delivery from the time you place your order. Rush options are available!
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 "medium 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
Japanese Romaji (Romanized Japanese)
Various forms of Romanized Chinese
Dance
舞 舞
mai
wǔ wu
wu3 wu
Dance / Dancing
舞蹈 舞蹈
butou buto
wǔ dǎo wu dao wu tao
wu3 dao3 wudao
Dance (Japanese only)
舞踊 舞踴
buyou buyo
n/a
Harmony (Music)
调和 調和
chou wa chouwa cho wa
tiáo hé tiao he t`iao ho
tiao2 he2 tiaohe tiaoho tiao ho
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 I spent hundreds of hours making images so that you could view the characters in the "dance" 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.
Some people may refer to this entry as Kanji, Characters, in Mandarin Chinese, Characters, in Chinese Writing, in Japanese Writing, in Asian Writing, Ideograms, Chinese symbols, Hieroglyphics, Glyphs, in Chinese Letters, Hanzi, in Japanese Kanji, Pictograms, in the Chinese Written-Language, or in the Japanese Written-Language.
