Come Here in Chinese / Japanese...

This is an excerpt from Revelations 22:20. It says "Surely, I am coming quickly" or "Surely I come quickly" depending on which Bible translation you use.

The Chinese translation here comes from the Chinese Union Bible which has been around for almost 100 years and it the standard for Chinese Christians.

This proverb is from Sun Tzu's (Sunzi's) Art of War. It means that if you know and understand the enemy, you also know yourself. There is a secondary four characters that come after this in the Art of War (not included here) which suggest you cannot lose a battle when you follow this philosophy.

In a very literal and somewhat-boring way, this can also be translated as, "Estimate correctly one's strength as well as that of one's opponent".

This proverb is the tattoo worn on the back of Yue Fei, a famous Chinese warrior who lived until 1142 A.D.

The tattoo can be translated as "Serve the country with the utmost loyalty". More literally, it means, "[The] Ultimate Loyalty [is too] Duty [of] Country".

Legend has it that this tattoo once saved his life when he was accused of treason.

The first two characters have come to create a word that means "serve the country faithfully" or "die for the country". Note: It's more a willingness to die for one's country than the actual act of dying.

The last two characters have come to mean, "Dedicate oneself to the service of one's country".

Both of these words are probably only in the Chinese lexicon because of this famous tattoo.

If you break it down, character-by-character, here is what you get:
1. To the utmost, to the limit of something, the ultimate.
2. Loyalty or duty (a sense of duty to one's master, lord, country, job).
3. Report, recompense, give back to (in this case, you are giving yourself to your country as payback).
4. Country, state, nation, kingdom.

More about the famous warrior and army general, Yue Fei

This Japanese proverb can be translated as, "flourish and wither, prosper and perish", "life is full of fortune and misfortune", or simply "vicissitudes of life".

This is about the rise and fall of human affairs or the ups and downs of life. Prosperity comes and goes, everything is fleeting and temporary but like waves, another swell of prosperity may come.

Here's how the Kanji break down in this proverb:

栄 = prosper; thrive; flourish; boom.
枯 = wither; die.
盛 = prosperous; flourishing; thriving; successful; energetic; vigorous; enthusiastic.
衰 = become weaker; decline; get weak; die down; subside; abate; fail.

Notes: The original version of the first character looks like the image to the right. In modern Japan, they simplified that Kanji a bit into the version shown above. If you have a preference for which style is used for your calligraphy, please let me know when you place your order.

Apparently, with that original version of the first character, this is also used in Korean Hanja. However, I have not confirmed that it’s used in the same way or is widely-known in Korean.

This is the last line of a famous poem. It is perceived as a tribute or ode to your parent's 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 sun light 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 which 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).