The five elements are earth (soil), water, gold/metal, wood, and fire. In Chinese astrology these five elements go through a five-year-cycle. Each year has a certain element assigned to it.
If you want to really get into it, there are also twelve animals in the Chinese zodiac which have a 12 year cycle.
If you are looking for more info on the Five Elements (Wu Xing) try this... Wikipedia: Five Elements (Wu Xing).
Quick links to words on this page...
| 1. Five Elements 2. Gold / Metal 3. Wood | 4. Water 5. Fire 6. Earth | 7. Five Elements Tai Chi Fist |
![]() ![]() ![]() ![]() ![]() This is a list of the Chinese characters for the five elements in a comfortable order (meaning that they simply "feel right" to a Chinese person who views this arrangement). ![]() ![]() ![]() ![]() ![]() This is the specifically-Japanese version of the five elements. This is a little different than the ancient or original Chinese version. ![]() ![]() This is the title of the five elements which are: wood, fire, water, earth and metal. The first character means "5" and the second character is simply "elements". ![]() This is the symbol for metal (often means gold or money) in Chinese, Korean and Japanese. ![]() This is the symbol for wood in Japanese, Korean and Chinese. This can sometimes mean "tree" depending on context. In fact, the character comes from a pictogram that is supposed to resemble a tree. ![]() This is the symbol for water in Japanese and Chinese. ![]() This is the symbol for fire, flame, or blaze in Chinese, Korean and Japanese. ![]() This is earth, soil, ground or Terra. ![]() ![]() ![]() ![]() ![]() This is a certain school or style of Tai Chi (Taiji). The characters literally mean "Five Elements Tai Chi Fist". Small-sized standard calligraphy wall scrolls on this page start at the following prices: We dispatch any size order to any country worldwide for a flat rate US$9.80 P&P After you select your calligraphy, our website will take you through the process of customizing your 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.
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 "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 |
Japanese Romaji (Romanized Japanese) | Various forms of Hanyu-Pinyin (Romanized Chinese) | |||
| Five Elements | 金木水火土 金木水火土 | n/a | jīn mù shuǐ huǒ tǔ jin mu shui huo tu | jin1 mu4 shui3 huo3 tu3 jinmushuihuotu | ||
| Five Elements (Japanese) | 地水火风空 地水火風空 | chi sui ka fuu kuu chisuikafuukuu chi sui ka fu ku | n/a | |||
| Five Elements | 五行 五行 | gogyou gogyo | wǔ xíng wu xing | wu3 xing2 wuxing | ||
| Gold / Metal | 金 金 | kane / kin kane/kin | jīn jin | jin1 jin | ||
| Wood | 木 木 | ki | mù mu | mu4 mu | ||
| Water | 水 水 | mizu | shuǐ shui | shui3 shui | ||
| Fire | 火 火 | hi | huǒ huo | huo3 huo | ||
| Earth | 土 土 | tsuchi | tǔ tu | tu3 tu | ||
| Five Elements Tai Chi Fist | 五行太极拳 五行太極拳 | go gyou tai kyoku ken gogyoutaikyokuken go gyo tai kyoku ken | wǔ xíng tài jí quán wu xing tai ji quan | wu3 xing2 tai4 ji2 quan2 wuxingtaijiquan | ||
| 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 "Five Elements" 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.
Please note: Rush service can be as fast as two weeks, but regular service is over a month for delivery.
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Last modified: Mar 06 2010 21:58