Fili’s world

I came across a few interesting examples of Chinese being used around Israel, usually to promote some products. Thing is, the Chinese usually shows up without any indication that it’s Chinese, so when I ask my friends and family what they think about the symbols they see they just respond with "We don’t know. What kind of picture is that?" and when I tell them it’s a Chinese character they either don’t believe me or they respond with some enthusiastic cry "Oh my god, it’s beautiful!".

Here’s a simple example from my tea collection. These are two photos of tea described in Hebrew as "Wilderness tea - Classical green tea (with Vitamin C)".

Those who know basic Chinese, are probably quick to notice that the lovely symbols decorating the tea cover are the Chinese characters for "cha2" meaning tea. Here’s the Wenlin explanation for the character :

(Yep, the English word for tea comes from Chinese in Fujian. A shocking discovery, is it not?)

Here’s another example for Chinese in Israel. While walking around Jerusalem’s downtown I came across a Henna Tattoo shop who had this displayed out side :

Yeah, Chinese characters are becoming quite popular  for people to put on their bodies. You can choose "Good luck" or "Peace", maybe "Tranquility" for 9.99 Shekels (2US$). I waited around a while to see if somebody actually would put a character on his body without checking that it really says what they think it does, and it turned out people did those without even knowing or caring that it’s Chinese.

If you think it’s only Henna Tattoos, then you’re wrong, people also carve those characters into their bodies, sometimes with mistakes. Here’s one from a girl in my workplace who proudly showed me her Chinese tattoo:

This was suppose to be "niu2" as in "ox, cow, bull" and she said it was because she was born in the year of the Ox. But the guy who made the tattoo probably never did Chinese characters before, so he carved it wrong and now it means nothing. Here’s from Wenlin (which, looking at the written character on the right as compared to the actual character on top, might explain his mistake) :

The oddest of the ones I was able to take a photo of must have been this next one, a graffiti which I noticed in a toilet at the Hebrew University (by the look of it, written by someone who hasn’t been writing Chinese for very long) :

It reads : 希伯來大學不好, directly translated as - "Hebrew University no good"