This is the Chinese name for the continent of North America.

北米 is the Japanese title for North America.

北美負鼠 is the full title for North American Opossum (aphesis spelling: Possum). The first two characters mean “North American” as an adjective. The third character means “carries” and refers to the marsupial pouch. The last character means “rat.” You could say the literal translation is “marsupial rat.”

Chinese opossums vary from the North American variety. If you were to use the last two characters alone, it may suggest the species native to China.

See Also:  Year of the Rat

北朝鮮 is the Chinese and Japanese name for the country of North Korea.

The official English name being Democratic People's Republic of Korea.

See Also:  South Korea | Asia

This short Japanese name for the country of North Korea (Democratic People's Republic of Korea).

There is a 3-character name, 北朝鮮 that is a lot more common.

See Also:  South Korea | Asia

This is the Chinese name for the country of Trinidad and Tobago.

Definitions vary as to whether in North or South America.

See Also:  North America | South America

阿魯巴 is the Chinese name for the territory of Aruba (overseas country in the Kingdom of the Netherlands).

Note: Definitions vary as to whether Aruba is in North America or South America.

See Also:  Netherlands | North America | South America

This is the Chinese name for the country of Cuba.

See Also:  North America

關島 is the Chinese name for the island of Guam (overseas territory of the United States).

See Also:  North America

This is the Chinese name for the country of Haiti.

See Also:  North America

利茲 is the name Lizz in Chinese (Mandarin).

See Also:  North America

This is the Chinese name for the United States of America (USA).

See Also:  North America

This is the Chinese name for the country of the Bahamas.

See Also:  North America

This is the Chinese name for the country of Belize.

See Also:  North America

This is the Chinese name for Bermuda (overseas territory of the United Kingdom).

See Also:  North America

This is the Chinese name for the country of Jamaica.

See Also:  North America

This is the Chinese name for the country of Panama.

See Also:  North America

This is the Chinese name for the country of Barbados.

See Also:  North America

This is the Chinese name for the country of Dominica.

See Also:  North America

This is the Chinese name for the country of El Salvador.

See Also:  North America

This is the Chinese name for the country of Grenada.

See Also:  North America

This is the Chinese name for the country of Guatemala.

See Also:  North America

This is the Chinese name for the country of Honduras.

See Also:  North America

This is the Chinese name for the country of Nicaragua.

See Also:  North America

This is the Chinese name for the country of Costa Rica.

See Also:  North America

This is the Chinese name for Guadeloupe (overseas department of France).

gua1 de2 luo2 pu3 dao3

See Also:  North America

This is the Chinese name for the country of New Caledonia (overseas territory of France).

See Also:  North America

This is the Chinese name for Antigua and Barbuda.

See Also:  North America

This is the Chinese name for the Dominican Republic.

See Also:  North America

南韓 is the common Chinese name for the country of South Korea.

The official English name being Republic of Korea.

See Also:  North Korea | Asia

This is the Chinese name for the Cayman Islands (overseas territory of the United Kingdom and a great place to hide money).

See Also:  North America | United Kingdom

This is the Chinese name for the Netherlands Antilles (overseas country in the Kingdom of the Netherlands) .

See Also:  Holland | Netherlands | North America

This is the Chinese name for the United States Virgin Islands (overseas territory of the United States).

See Also:  North America | British Virgin Islands

英屬維爾斯群島 is the Chinese name for the British Virgin Islands (overseas territory of the United Kingdom).

See Also:  United States Virgin Islands | North America

This is the Chinese name for the country of Mexico.

See Also:  Spain | United States of America | Canada | North America

This is the Chinese name for the country of Canada.

See Also:  United States of America | Mexico | North America

This is the Chinese name for Puerto Rico (overseas territory of the United States) .

See Also:  United States of America | North America

玄武 can refer to the Black Tortoise (an ancient Chinese constellation of stars- part of the seven mansions of the north sky).

In Daoism, this is the God of the North sky.

This also refers to a Black Tortoise god, said to rule over the northern heavens in Japanese. Can also be pronounced/romanized as genmu or when used as a personal name, Hirotake in Japanese.

This is a common transliteration to Mandarin Chinese for the name Durham.

This is also the way Durham, North Carolina and Durham, England are referred to in Chinese.

印第安 is the Chinese title for (American) Indian or Native American.

For disambiguation, this refers only to the indigenous people of North America.

印第安 is a transliteration, so it is meant to sound like the English word “Indian” using Chinese sounds.

This is not a common selection for a calligraphy wall scroll.

負鼠 is the name for Opossum (aphesis spelling: Possum) in Chinese.

The first character means “carries” and refers to the marsupial pouch. The second character means “rat.” You could say the literal translation is “marsupial rat.”

Chinese opossums vary from the North American variety. Using the two characters shown here may suggest the species native to China.

See Also:  Year of the Rat

打怕的人是假的敬怕的人是真的 is a proverb that seems to be aimed at world leaders or others in power. Perhaps a suggestion to avoid the practice of “fear-mongering” opting instead for a policy of benevolence and justice.

An example: When the Bush administration told Pakistan they could either join America in the “war on terror,” or expect some bombs to be coming their way, Bush gained this kind of “less-than-genuine respect” from Pakistanis.
Leaders in places like North Korea and even Saudi Arabia reap the same bogus respect from their own citizens.

Note that calligraphers do not like to repeat the same characters in exactly the same way in the same piece of artwork. So expect the characters that are repeated to be written in different forms in the real artwork (unlike the way they are displayed to the left).

This can be translated literally as “Praying Mantis Fist.”

螳螂拳 is sometimes called Shandong Praying Mantis after its place of origin. It was created by Wang Lang and was named after the praying mantis, an insect, the aggressiveness of which inspired the style.

Shaolin records document that Wang Lang was one of the 18 masters gathered by the Shaolin Abbot Fu Ju, which dates him and Northern Praying Mantis style to the Song Dynasty (960-1279 A.D.).

The fact that the word “Northern” is used in the English title has more to do with where this style came from (Shandong is in northern China), but “north” is absent from this Chinese title.

Note: 螳螂拳 is also a title in Japanese - however, only a Japanese person who practices or is familiar with the “Praying Mantis Fist” style would recognize it.

This demon title comes from the ancient Sanskrit word Asura.

阿修羅 is often used in Buddhism when describing various demons. Sometimes defined as “Fighting and battling a giant demon.”

In the context of Buddhism: This title originally meant a spirit, spirits, or even the gods (perhaps before 1700 years ago). It now generally indicates titanic demons, enemies of the gods, with whom, especially Indra, they wage constant war. They are defined as “not devas,” “ugly,” and “without wine.” There are four classes of asuras, separated according to their manner of rebirth. They can be egg-born, womb-born, transformation-born, and spawn- or water-born. Their abode is in the ocean, north of Sumeru but certain of the weaker dwell in a western mountain cave. They have realms, rulers, and palaces, as have the devas.

In terms of power, Asuras rank above humans but below most other deities. They live near the coastal foot of Mount Sumeru (on the northern side). Their domain is partially or wholly in the ocean.

老當益壯 is a Chinese proverb that means “old but vigorous” or “hale and hearty despite the years.”

Said of someone who is more spirited when he/she grows older.

The story behind this Chinese proverb:

In the Eastern Han Dynasty, there was a man named Ma Yuan. He had been planning to herd animals on the frontier since he was young. When he grew up, Ma became a minor official of a county.

Once, he was sending some prisoners to another location. He felt pity for them, so he set them free, and then he fled to another county in the north. He herded animals there, and thus his dream came true. He always said: “If you want to be a great man, the poorer you are, the firmer in spirit you have to be; the older you are, the more spirited you should be.”

Later, when he was even older, Ma Yuan became a famous general of the Eastern Han Dynasty and contributed to many battles.

酒后吐真言 / 酒後吐真言 is a nice Asian proverb if you know a vintner or wine seller - or wine lover - although the actual meaning might not be exactly what you think or hope.

The literal meaning is that someone drinking wine is more likely to let the truth slip out. It can also be translated as “People speak their true feelings after drinking alcohol.”

It's long believed in many parts of Asia that one can not consciously hold up a facade of lies when getting drunk, and therefore the truth will come out with a few drinks.

I've had the experience where a Korean man would not trust me until I got drunk with him (I was trying to gain access to the black market in North Korea which is tough to do as an untrusted outsider) - so I think this idea is still well-practiced in many Asian countries.

VS

Please note that there are two common ways to write the second character of this phrase. The way it's written will be left up to the mood of the calligrapher, unless you let us know that you have a certain preference.

See Also:  Honesty | Truth

Hapkido or 合氣道 is a mostly-defensive martial art in Korea.

Hapkido has some connection to the Aikido of Japan. They are written with the same characters in both languages. However, it should be noted that the Korean Hanja characters shown here are the traditional Chinese form - but in modern Japan, the middle character was slightly simplified.
Note: You can consider this to be the older Japanese written form of Aikido. Titles on older books and signs about Aikido use this form.

The connection between Japanese Aikido and Korean Hapkido is muddled in history. The issue is probably due to the difficult relationship between the two countries around WWII. Many Koreans became virtual slaves to the Japanese during that period. After WWII, many things in Korea were disassociated from having any Japanese origin. The relationship has greatly mellowed out now.

Looking at the characters, the first means “union” or “harmony.”
The second character means “universal energy” or “spirit.”
The third means “way” or “method.”
One way to translate this into English is the “Harmonizing Energy Method.” This makes sense, as Hapkido has more to do with redirecting energy than fighting strength against strength.

More Hapkido info

More notes:
1. Sometimes Hapkido is Romanized as “hap ki do,” “hapki-do” “hab gi do” or “hapgido.”

2. Korean Hanja characters are actually Chinese characters that usually hold the same meaning in both languages. There was a time when these characters were the standard and only written form of Korean. The development of modern Korean Hangul characters is a somewhat recent event in the greater scope of history. There was a time when Chinese characters were the written form of many languages in places known in modern times as North Korea, South Korea, Japan, Vietnam, Singapore, Hong Kong, Taiwan, Mainland China, and a significant portion of Malaysia. Even today, more people in the world can read Chinese characters than English.

3. While these Korean Hanja characters can be pronounced in Chinese, this word is not well-known in China and is not considered part of the Chinese lexicon.