"Love" in Chinese characters, Japanese Kanji and old Korean Hanja
Calligraphy Wall Scroll
This is the Chinese/Japanese/Korean character for "Ai" which is "Love".
This may be hard to imagine as a westerner, but the strokes at the top of this love character symbolize the family & marriage.
The symbol in the middle is a little easier to identify. It is "xin" which is
the character for "heart" in Chinese and Japanese. I guess you can say that no matter if you are from the East or the West, you must put your heart into your love.
The strokes at the bottom create a modified "you" character which means "friend". (pronounced like "yo" -
to call someone "friend" you'd use two characters and it would sound like "pung-yo" using English pronunciation rules).
I suppose you could say that the full meaning of "Ai" is to love your family, spouse, and friends with all of your heart, since all three elements exist in this character.
A simple phrase in Chinese in which this word is used is:
This is pronounced roughly "wha eye knee" using English words/rules of pronunciation.
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buy your Asian Love Calligraphy Artwork
This piece is painted with special Chinese ink on rice paper mounted to a traditional gold-colored silk scroll.
Chinese Calligraphy is only practiced by those with a keen and agile hand. It is an art that dates back thousands of years, and great artists, writers, and poets are often admired for their calligraphy ability and style.
The artist's name is "Shou Shi" who is from Guilin, China. He is a master calligrapher with excellent calligraphy skills.
To create this art, Shou Shi used special Chinese ink on xuan paper (rice paper). Later, in our Beijing workshop, this artwork was mounted as a silk scroll by hand.
This hanging scroll is really nice since it doesn't require framing. Just hang it on your wall as Chinese people have done for centuries.
I guess I should mention that this scroll is specially priced. This calligraphy artwork was originally part of our effort to find and secure a master calligrapher to do most or all of our calligraphy offerings. Upon receiving this batch of artwork a couple years ago, I realized the huge logistic problems of having a calligrapher in Guilin, and our workshop in Beijing (over a thousand miles away). So I let this artwork sit until April of 2008. I have a lot invested in the artwork, and I need to recover a little of that money. This scroll should be priced at about $60-$70. So while I am losing money on these, at least I am recovering some of the cost.
