I Really Need You in Chinese / Japanese...

誰言寸草心報得三春暉 is the last line of a famous poem. It is perceived as a tribute or ode to your parents or mother from a child or children that have left home.

The poem was written by Meng Jiao during the Tang Dynasty (about 1200 years ago). The Chinese title is “You Zi Yin” which means “The Traveler's Recite.”

The last line as shown here speaks of the generous and warm spring sunlight which gives the grass far beyond what the little grass can could ever give back (except perhaps by showing its lovely green leaves and flourishing). The metaphor is that the sun is your mother or parents, and you are the grass. Your parents raise you and give you all the love and care you need to prepare you for the world. A debt that you can never repay, nor is repayment expected.

The first part of the poem (not written in the characters to the left) suggests that the thread in a loving mother's hands is the shirt of her traveling offspring. Vigorously sewing while wishing them to come back sooner than they left.
...This part is really hard to translate into English that makes any sense but maybe you get the idea. We are talking about a poem that is so old that many Chinese people would have trouble reading it (as if it was the King James Version of Chinese).

氣功 or Qigong is the title of a technique that is somewhere between medical practice, meditation, and in some cases, religion.

The definition is blurred depending on which school of Qigong you are following. In some cases, it is even incorporated with martial arts.

Some people (even Chinese people) mix this title with Tai Chi (Tai Qi) exercises.

Lately, in China, people will claim to practice Tai Chi rather than Qigong because the Qigong title was recently used as a cover for an illegal pseudo-religious movement in China with the initials F.G. or F.D. (I can not write those names here for fear of our website being banned in China).

You can learn those names and more here: Further info about Qigong

If you are wondering why I wrote “Qi Gong” and “Chi Kung” as the title of this calligraphy entry, I should teach you a little about the various ways in which Chinese can be Romanized. One form writes this as “Chi Kung” or “Chikung” (Taiwan). In the mainland and elsewhere, it is Romanized as “Qi Gong” or “Qigong.” The pronunciation is the same in Taiwan, mainland, and Singapore Mandarin. Neither Romanization is exactly like English. If you want to know how to say this with English rules, it would be something like “Chee Gong” (but the “gong” has a vowel sound like the “O” in “go”).

Romanization is a really confusing topic and has caused many Chinese words to be mispronounced in the west. One example is “Kung Pao Chicken,” which should actually be more like “Gong Bao” with the “O” sounding like “oh” for both characters. Neither the Romanization system in Taiwan nor the Mainland is perfect, in my opinion, and leads to many misunderstandings.

In modern Japan, you may see this written as 気功, but the original 氣功 is still recognized. If you need the Japanese version, please contact me.