Yin Yang in Chinese / Japanese...

yīn yáng

in you

음양

These are the characters that literally mean yin and yang in written form (versus the common yin yang symbol). The first character has the element of the moon, while the second character has the element of the sun, so you can see, even in written form, they suggest the balance of opposites (of night and day). You could also translate this title as "sun and moon."

Note: This title is often misspelled as Ying Yang instead of Yin Yang.

See Also:  Taoism

bā guà

八卦 is the Chinese title for Bagua or Ba Gua.

To put it simply, this represents the eight elements often seen around the yin yang symbol.

tài jí qiú

tai kyoku kyuu

太極球 is the title "Tai Chi Ball."

This may refer to any number of variations of exercise balls, some with yin-yang themes, others strictly for taichi/taiji or qigong exercises.

shuǐ néng zài zhōu yì néng fù zhōu

수능재주역능복주

Many things have opposite properties. The water you drink can also drown you. Pork may nourish you and keep you alive but under-cook it and it could kill you. Potassium nitrate is often used as a fertilizer to grow the food that sustains us but it's also been used as an explosive to topple buildings and destroy us.

This concept is easily associated with "yin yang" where an element has two opposite properties that are as different as night and day.

This proverb's meaning can be summed up this way: "Anything that can lead you to success may also contain great risks."

This phrase is known in literary circles by Korean people (scholars or literature). It is therefore also a valid proverb in Korean Hanja, though most Koreans would not be able to make sense of it.

Please note that there is an unwritten rule when the same character appears twice in the same phrase, the calligrapher will alter the appearance so that no two characters are exactly alike in the same piece. This calligraphy has two repeating characters that will be written differently than they appear here.