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This can also mean: "Place Strict Standards on Oneself in Public Service".
This Chinese phrase is often used to express how one should act as a government official. Most of us wish our public officials would hold themselves to higher standards. I wish I could send this scroll, along with the meaning to every member of Congress, and the President (or if I was from the UK, all the members of Parliament, and the PM)
The story behind this ancient Chinese idiom:
A man named Cai Zun was born in China a little over 2000 years ago. In 24 AD, he joined an uprising led by Liu Xiu who later became the emperor of the Eastern Han Dynasty.
Later, the new emperor put Cai Zun in charge of the military court. Cai Zun exercised his power in strict accordance with military law, regardless of the offender's rank or background. He even ordered the execution of one of the emperor's close servants after the servant committed a serious crime.
Cai Zun led a simple life, but put great demands on himself to do all things in an honorable way. The emperor rewarded him for his honest character and honorable nature by promoting him to the rank of General and granting him the title of Marquis.
Whenever Cai Zun would receive an award, he would give credit to his men and share the reward with them.
Cai Zun was always praised by historians who found many examples of his selfless acts that served the public interest.
Sometime, long ago in history, people began to refer to Cai Zun as "ke ji feng gong".
See Also... Unselfish | Selflessness | Altruism
Score: 100/100




This is comes from an old story from some time before 476 BC. About a man named Qi Huangyang, who was commissioned by the king to select the best person for a certain job in the Imperial Court.
Qi Huangyang selected his enemy for the job. The king was very confused by the selection, but Qi Huangyang explained that he was asked to find the best person for the job, not necessarily someone that he personally liked or had a friendship with.
Later, Confucius commented on how unselfish and impartial Qi Huangyang was by saying "Da Gong Wu Si" which if you look it up in a Chinese dictionary, is generally translated as "Unselfish" or "Just and Fair".
If you translate each character, you'd have something like,
"Big/Deep Justice Without Self".
Direct translations like this leave out a lot of what the Chinese characters really say. Use your imagination, and suddenly you realize that "without self" means "without thinking about yourself in the decision" - together, these two words mean "unselfish". The first two characters serve to really drive the point home that we are talking about a concept that is similar to "blind justice".
One of my Chinese-English dictionaries translates this simply as "just and fair". So that is the short and simple version.
Note: This can be pronounced in Korean, but it's not a commonly-used term.
See Also... Selflessness | Altruism | Confucius
Score: 100/100
AKA: Universal Benevolence
Mandarin:
yí shì tóng rén
Japanese:
isshidoujin
Korean: 일시동인




This is how to write "universal benevolence". This is also how to express the idea that you see all people the same.
If you are kind and charitable to all people, this is the best way to state that virtue. It is the essence of being impartial to all mankind, regardless of social standing, background, race, sex, etc. You do not judge others, but rather you see them eye to eye on the same level with you.
See Also... Benevolence | Compassion | Equality | Justice | Right Decision | Selflessness
Score: 81/100




The title says it all.
This could also be translated as:
"Never hesitate to do what is right".
Score: 23/100
Wall scroll artwork shown on this page is priced as follows:
4 characters $49.88 each
After you select your calligraphy, our website will take you through the process of customizing your artwork.
Options for other mounting such as portraits are available for $13 less.
We also offer the services of a famous master calligrapher for a $40 fee on any scroll if you are looking for investment-quality calligraphy.
If you chose our famous master-calligrapher, you also get more choices for silk and paper colors and the option for larger 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.
After we create your wall scroll, it takes at least two weeks for air mail delivery from Beijing to you.
Therefore, allow at least 3 weeks for delivery from the time you place your order.
When you select your calligraphy, you'll be taken to another page where you can choose various custom options.
More WORK UNSELFISHLY FOR THE COMMON Asian artwork can be found here.
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) | |||
| Work Unselfishly for the Common Good | 克己奉公 克己奉公 | n/a | kè jǐ fèng gōng ke ji feng gong | ke4 ji3 feng4 gong1 kejifenggong | ||
| Unselfish: Perfectly Impartial | 大公无私 大公無私 | n/a | dà gōng wú sī da gong wu si | da4 gong1 wu2 si1 dagongwusi | ||
| Impartial and Fair to the Brotherhood and Sisterhood of the World | 一视同仁 一視同仁 | isshidoujin ishidojin | yí shì tóng rén yi shi tong ren | yi2 shi4 tong2 ren2 yishitongren | ||
| Courage to do what is right | 见义勇为 見義勇為 | n/a | jiàn yì yǒng wéi jian yi yong wei | jian4 yi4 yong3 wei2 jianyiyongwei | ||
| 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 "work unselfishly for the common" 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.
Normal delivery isjust over 3 weeksfor these handmade items.
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