Buy a Custom Live For Today Chinese or Japanese Calligraphy Wall Scroll

This is not really an eastern concept, so it does not translate into a phrase that seems natural on a wall scroll. However, if this is your philosophy, the characters shown here do capture your idea of living for today or living in the moment. These characters literally say "Live in today" and they are grammatically correct in Chinese.

Note: This kind of makes sense in Korean Hanja, but the grammar is Chinese, so it's not that natural in Korean.

This is the word that means alive, as in the state of living or being alive (Chinese only).

This Chinese word means "to be born" and "to give birth". Also it's often used to refer to life itself, and sometimes "to grow".

This character is used in a lot of compound words such as "yi sheng", which means "doctor" (literally "healer of life"), "sheng ri" which means "birthday" (literally "birth day") and "xue sheng" which means student (literally "studying life" or "learner [about] life"). Few Chinese people will think of the literal meaning when this use words like doctor and student - but it is interesting to note.

This character has the same root meaning in Korean Hanja and Japanese. However, in Japanese, there are many possible pronunciations, and this can be used to mean "raw" or "unprocessed" (as in draft beer). Therefore, not be the best if your audience is Japanese.

See Also...  Life Force | Vitality

This is the closest and most natural way to express this idea in Chinese.

The first two characters mean "to seize" but can also be translated as "take control of".

The last two characters mean "today".

This simply means everyday life or regular life. You can also translate it as "Living day to day".

This means immortal or immortality in Chinese, Japanese Kanji and old Korean Hanja.

The literal translation is "without decay" or "never rotting". Basically this title speaks of something or someone who never dies and thus never rots or decays.

This can also be translated as everlasting, eternal or imperishable.

This is a kind of complex ten-character proverb composed by Zhuge Liang about 1800 years ago. The proverb means "Leading a simple life will yield a clear mind, and having inner peace will help you see far (into the world)".

What I have translated as "simple life" means NOT being materialistic and NOT competing in the rat race.

The last word means "far", but the deeper meaning is that you will surpass what you can currently see or understand. Perhaps even the idea of opening up vast knowledge and understanding of complex ideas.

The whole phrase has a theme that suggests if you are NOT an aggressive cut-throat person who fights his way to the top no matter how many people he crushes on the way, and instead seek inner peace, you will have a happier existence and be more likely to understand the meaning of life.

See Also...  Serenity

This Chinese, Korean and Japanese word means "life force" or simply "life". The first character means "life" or "birth". The second means "life" or "fate". Together they create the meaning of "life force", though some will translate this as "existence" and sometimes "vitality".

See Also...  Vitality | Birth

No matter what happens, life goes on. For better or worse, life goes one. This is the basic idea behind this modern Chinese phrase which literally says "Life goes on" in these five characters.

A further explanation of this phrase can now be found on our forum here: Life Goes On in Chinese, explained.

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This means, "A life of happiness and prosperity" or "A life of happiness and success". It's a great and very positive and inspirational wall scroll selection.

See Also...  Prosperity

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This phrase means "Life is a Journey".

If this matches your philosophy, this might be the perfect Chinese calligraphy for you.

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This literally translates as: [Even a] hundred-year-old [person] is [just a] traveler passing by.

The simple message is, "Human life is short". Of course, there is an unspoken suggestion that you should make the best of the time you have here on earth.

This means life, living, to live, or the state of being alive. It can also refer to your daily existence or livelihood.

This is also the term used in other titles such as "healthy living" or Lance Armstrong's "Livestrong" campaign (Chinese title for Livestrong only).

If you need a reminder that you are alive, and to take a breath, this might be the perfect wall scroll for you.

This came from a customer's request, but it's not too bad. These three simple characters suggest that you are born, you learn to love, and then exit the world.

In English, the word order shown in the title is the most natural or popular. In Chinese, the natural order is a little different:

The first character means laugh (sometimes means smile).

The second character means love.

The last two characters mean "live" as in "to be alive" or "pursue life".

Please note: This is not a normal phrase, in that it does not have a subject, verb, and object. It is a word list. Word lists are not common in Asian languages/grammar (at least not as normal as they are in English). We only added this entry because so many people requested it.

We put the characters in the order shown above, as it almost makes a single word with the meaning, "A life of laughter and love". It's a made-up word, but it sounds good in Chinese.

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This means, "live in prosperity". It's kind of a suggestion to be prosperity the center of your world.

This is the way some people want to live (and you should always live for what you love). However, this phrase does not suggest a peaceful life - rather one that is always busy. It's not for everyone, but it might be for you.

See Also...  Prosperity

This is how to say "live without regrets" in Mandarin Chinese. This also makes sense in Japanese, but I don't yet have the pronunciation info.

While hard to translate directly, this is the best way to write "Live Strong" in Chinese. If you are a cancer survivor, or simply support Lance Armstrong's ideas, this is a nice selection for a wall scroll.

The first two characters mean strong or staunch. The last two mean living or life (daily existence). While the Chinese version is the reverse order of "Live Strong" it is the only way to write it in a natural form that is also grammatically correct.

Note that we are in no way affiliated or connected to Lance, nor his foundation. This translation is offered because of multiple requests from customers whose philosophies or ideas match those of the Live Strong idea.

See Also...  Strength | Vitality | Health | Determination | Discipline

This is the most common way to express "survivor" in Chinese. It literally means "lucky/fortunate surviving person".

This is kind of an odd selection for a wall scroll, but there is no better way to say survivor in Chinese calligraphy.

This word is hard to define. One dictionary defines this as, "acceptance of fate and happy about it". There is one rare English word equivalent which is sanguinity.

You can also say that this means, "Be happy with whatever Heaven provides", or "Find happiness in whatever fate Heaven bestows upon you". This is kind of a way to suggest being an optimist in life.

Note: This is sometimes used as a given name in China.

This Japanese phrase can be translated as "live for the day", "live for the moment", "seize the day", or "make the most of the present".

This is a very short way to write "live in the moment" or "live in the now" in Japanese.

This short word is open to interpretation. It's used in Japanese Buddhism to mean "the current epoch" or "the current age" (the current age is but a brief moment in the greater scope of existence). When used in that context, this is pronounced "utsushiyo" or "ustusiyo" in Japanese. Otherwise, it's pronounced "gensei" in Japanese.

Other translation possibilities include:
Live for now
Earthly world
This world
This life
Earthly life
Present life
Present generation
Present incarnation
Current age
This existence
This (momentary) reality

Note: This is also a word in Chinese and old Korean Hanja. While the meaning is more or less the same, this is not recommended for a wall scroll if your audience is Chinese or Korean. This selection is best if your audience is Japanese.

This is the character which means "heaven" or "sky" in Chinese, Japanese Kanji, and old Korean Hanja.

Context of how this character is used determines if you are talking about heaven or the sky above (often they are the same concept anyway).

When combined with other characters, words like "today" and "tomorrow" are created. While sometimes the character for "sun" is used to mean "day", often "sky" represents "day" in Asian languages.
Example: "this sky" = "today", "next sky" = "tomorrow" in modern Chinese and Japanese (they also use "sun" in the same way - but the use of the "sun" character in words like today and tomorrow feels more ancient).

In Chinese culture, regardless of which religion, it's almost always assumed that God (and any other deities) live up above in the sky. This is probably how the idea of heaven being associated with this character began.
The equation goes something like this: God's domain is the sky, thus, the sky is heaven.

Note: As a single character, this is a little ambiguous, so you might want to choose our Kingdom of Heaven selection instead.

See Also...  Heaven | God | Sun