We're heading to Korea and China to seek out some new artists along with our first vacation since 2023. Orders for in-stock items will shipped on July 25th. No delay for custom calligraphy.
Use coupon code "VACATION" for 10% off if you're willing to order now and wait a little for delivery.

Many custom options...

Tan Paper and Copper Silk Love Wall Scroll
Red Paper and Ivory Silk Love Wall Scroll
Orange Paper Love Scroll
Crazy Blue and Gold Silk Love Scroll


And formats...

Love Vertical Portrait
Love Horizontal Wall Scroll
Love Vertical Portrait

May in Chinese / Japanese...

Buy a May calligraphy wall scroll here!

Personalize your custom “May” project by clicking the button next to your favorite “May” title below...

May

Customize & Buy
 méi
 매
May Scroll

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

梅 actually means “plum blossom.” This is a common name for girls in China.

May

Customize & Buy
 mei
May Scroll

メイ is the name May in Japanese.

Note: Because this title is entirely Japanese Katakana, it should be written by a Japanese calligrapher.

Beauty / Beautiful / Handsome

Customize & Buy
 měi
 bi
 미
Beauty / Beautiful / Handsome Scroll

美 is often used to describe the beauty of a woman.

However, when applied to a man, it can mean handsome. It's also the first character in the word for “beauty salon” which you will see all over China and Japan.

This can be used as the given name for a girl (spell it or say it as “Mei” or “May”).

For a bit of trivia: The title for the “USA” in Chinese is “Mei Guo” which literally means “Beautiful Country.” This name was bestowed at a time before Chairman Mao came to power and decided that China didn't like the USA anymore (even though we fought together against the Japanese in WWII). But these days, Chinese people love Americans (but have a distaste for American politics and policy). But I digress...

美 is also how “Beautiful” is written in Japanese Kanji and Korean Hanja. 美 can also mean: very satisfactory; good; to be pleased with oneself; abbreviation for the USA; fine; handsome; admirable; madhura; sweet; and/or pleasant.

See Also:  Beautiful Woman | Beautiful Girl


The following table may be helpful for those studying Chinese or Japanese...

Title CharactersRomaji (Romanized Japanese)Various forms of Romanized Chinese
May梅méi / mei2 / mei
Mayメイmei
Beauty
Beautiful
Handsome		美biměi / mei3 / mei
In some entries above you will see that characters have different versions above and below a line.
In these cases, the characters above the line are Traditional Chinese, while the ones below are Simplified Chinese.


Dictionary

Lookup May in my Japanese & Chinese Dictionary


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All of our calligraphy wall scrolls are handmade.

When the calligrapher finishes creating your artwork, it is taken to my 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.

Allow a few weeks for delivery. Rush service speeds it up by a week or two for $10!

When you select your calligraphy, you'll be taken to another page where you can choose various custom options.


A nice Chinese calligraphy wall scroll

The wall scroll that Sandy is holding in this picture is a "large size"
single-character wall scroll.
We also offer custom wall scrolls in small, medium, and an even-larger jumbo size.

A professional Chinese Calligrapher

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.

Trying to learn Chinese calligrapher - a futile effort

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.

A high-ranked Chinese master calligrapher that I met in Zhongwei

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.


Check out my lists of Japanese Kanji Calligraphy Wall Scrolls and Old Korean Hanja Calligraphy Wall Scrolls.

Some people may refer to this entry as May Kanji, May Characters, May in Mandarin Chinese, May Characters, May in Chinese Writing, May in Japanese Writing, May in Asian Writing, May Ideograms, Chinese May symbols, May Hieroglyphics, May Glyphs, May in Chinese Letters, May Hanzi, May in Japanese Kanji, May Pictograms, May in the Chinese Written-Language, or May in the Japanese Written-Language.

74 people have searched for May in Chinese or Japanese in the past year.
May was last searched for by someone else on Jul 20th, 2025