Travel in Chinese / Japanese...

旅行 means journey or travels. It is sometimes used to refer to a vacation.

If you like a good adventure, maybe this is the word for you.

旅 is the single Chinese character, Japanese Kanji, and old Korean Hanja for trip, travel, or journey.

In older context, this could refer to an army brigade or a 500-man battalion from the Zhou-dynasty Chinese army.

This translates a few ways:
To travel ten-thousand miles beats reading ten-thousand books.
Better to travel ten thousand li than to read ten thousand books. (a "li" is an ancient Chinese mile)
Travelling thousands of miles is better than reading thousands of books.

No matter how you slice it, this Chinese proverb is claiming that experience is more profound and meaningful than what you can get from a book. Go do it! Don't just read about it.

This is a lifelong suggestion for expanding your horizons by gaining knowledge, experience, and seeing the world.

Of course, this was written long ago when it was hard to travel 10,000 miles (at least 1000 years before the invention of the airplane).
With air travel and the business I'm in, I often achieve that lifetime goal on a monthly basis.
However, I am a little behind in the book count.

Note: An ancient Chinese mile (里 or lǐ) referred to in this proverb is about a third of a British/American mile. However, at that time, this was a great distance to travel.

羈旅 is a Chinese and Japanese title for traveler / traveller, to live abroad, to be traveling, or just travel.

This poem was written almost 1200 years ago during the Tang dynasty.

It depicts traveling up a place known as Cold Mountain, where some hearty people have built their homes. The traveler is overwhelmed by the beauty of the turning leaves of the maple forest that surrounds him just as night overtakes the day, and darkness prevails. His heart implores him to stop, and take in all of the beauty around him.

First before you get to the full translation, I must tell you that Chinese poetry is a lot different than what we have in the west. Chinese words simply don't rhyme in the same way that English, or other western languages do. Chinese poetry depends on rhythm and a certain beat of repeated numbers of characters.

I have done my best to translate this poem keeping a certain feel of the original poet. But some of the original beauty of the poem in it's original Chinese will be lost in translation.

Far away on Cold Mountain, a stone path leads upwards.
Among white clouds, people's homes reside.
Stopping my carriage I must, as to admire the maple forest at nights fall.
In awe of autumn leaves showing more red than even flowers of early spring.

Hopefully, this poem will remind you to stop, and "take it all in" as you travel through life.
The poet's name is "Du Mu" in Chinese that is: .
The title of the poem, "Mountain Travels" is:
You can have the title, poet's name, and even Tang Dynasty written as an inscription on your custom wall scroll if you like.

More about the poet:

Dumu lived from 803-852 AD and was a leading Chinese poet during the later part of the Tang dynasty.
He was born in Chang'an, a city of central China and former capital of the ancient Chinese empire in 221-206 BC. In present-day China, his birthplace is currently known as Xi'an, the home of the Terracotta Soldiers.

He was awarded his Jinshi degree (an exam administered by the emperor's court which leads to becoming an official of the court) at the age of 25, and went on to hold many official positions over the years. However, he never achieved a high rank, apparently because of some disputes between various factions, and his family's criticism of the government. His last post in the court was his appointment to the office of Secretariat Drafter.

During his life, he wrote scores of narrative poems, as well as a commentary on the Art of War and many letters of advice to high officials.

His poems were often very realistic, and often depicted every day life. He wrote poems about everything, from drinking beer in a tavern to weepy poems about lost love.

The thing that strikes you most is the fact even after 1200 years, not much has changed about the beauty of nature, toils and troubles of love and beer drinking.

If you lead a life of adventure (like I do), a 探險 wall scroll is for you.

Alone, the first character can mean "to explore," "to search out," or "to scout." The second character holds the meanings of "dangerous" and "rugged." Together these two characters create the word that means "adventure" or "to explore."

探険 is a modern Japanese Kanji version, but it more precisely means exploration or expedition rather than adventure. 探險 is the old/ancient Japanese version used before WWII. Let us know if you want the modern Japanese version instead.

See Also:  Bon Voyage

冒険 is a common Japanese way to say "Adventure."

The first character can mean "to risk," "to defy" or "to dare." The second character means "inaccessible place" or "impregnable position." Together, you get the idea of why these two characters mean adventure when put them together in Japanese.

Note: The second character is a morphed Japanese Kanji. The original Chinese version is also available and holds the same root meaning.

冒險 is another Chinese and Korean word for "Adventure."

冒險 is more of a "risk-taking" version of adventure.

The first character can mean "brave" and "bold." The second character means "dangerous" and "rugged." Together they can be defined as a word meaning "adventure" in Chinese and Korean.

Note: Some dictionaries translate these two characters as "take a risk."

冒険野郎 is a Japanese title which means "adventure lover."

This literally means something like "adventure wild man."

冒険野郎 is a funny choice for a wall scroll, but it's a legitimate word in Japanese.

一路平安 is a wish for someone to have a pleasant journey.

It's probably the closest way to translate "bon voyage" into Chinese.

The first two characters mean one road or one path. The second two characters mean "safe and sound" or "without mishap."

一路平安 means the same thing in Japanese but not the most common selection for a wall scroll.

If you believe that life is a journey, this is a nice Japanese title for you wall.

人生行路 means "journey of life" in Japanese Kanji. The actual word order is more like "life (人生) journey (行路)" as Japanese grammar is a bit different than English.

Note: The "journey" part can also be translated as "road," so this is also how to say, "the road of life."

This Chinese and Japanese proverb means, "to have a pleasant journey," "sailing with the wind at your back," or as an expression to say, "everything is going well."

This Japanese proverb states that, "A journey of a thousand miles feels like only one mile." It is understood that in the proverb, this applies when going to see the one you love.

Note that the "mile" or 里 used in this proverb is an old Chinese "li" (pronounced "ri" in Japanese). It's not actually a mile, as the measurement is really closer to 500 meters (it would take 3 of these to get close to a western mile). Still, 1000里 (333 miles) is a long way.

是旅途不是目的 is the English proverb, "It's the journey, not the destination," translated into Chinese.

This proverb means "Life is a Journey."

If this matches your philosophy, this might be the perfect Chinese calligraphy for you.

This old Chinese proverb speaks to the act of giving up. This phrase suggests that no matter how close you are to finishing your task or journey, giving up just before you finish, is just as bad as giving up halfway.

50% finished or 90% finished, the result is the same: "You are not finished."

You can take what you want from this proverb but I think it suggests that you should finish what you start, and especially finish that last 10% of your journey or project so that you can honestly say "it's finished."

Some notes: The character, 里, that I am translating as "mile" is really an ancient "Chinese mile" which is actually about half a kilometer - it just doesn't sound right to say "When walking 100 half-kilometers..."

不經旅途不成目的 is the English proverb, "The destination is nothing without the journey," translated into Chinese.

千里之行始於足下 is a Chinese proverb that means, "a thousand mile journey begins with the first step."

This proverb figuratively means, "big accomplishments come from an accumulation of little achievements made one by one."

This is the Japanese version of an ancient Chinese proverb that means, "a journey of a thousand miles begins with a single step."

Some will also translate this as a 1000 mile road starts with one brick (a small amount).

In this case, the real measurement is an ancient Chinese "li" or 里, which is romanized as "ri" in Japanese. It's about half a kilometer, so three 里 would be a western mile. A journey of 333 miles begins with a single step, just doesn't sound as natural.

Note: Because this selection contains some special Japanese Hiragana characters, it should be written by a Japanese calligrapher.