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1. Hearing a Hundred Times is Not as Good as Seeing Once
2. Undaunted After Repeated Setbacks
4. Know Your Enemy, Know Yourself, and Win 100 Battles
6. Inspire with redoubled courage
7. Even The 100-Foot Bamboo Can Grow One More Foot
9. One Justice Can Overpower 100 Evils
10. You May Learn from Victory, You Will Learn from Failure
12. Legendary Turtle
13. Know Your Enemy, Know Yourself, and You Cannot Lose
14. Archer
15. Diligence
16. Japanese Snapping Turtle / Chinese Soft Shell Turtle
18. The one who retreats 50 paces mocks the one to retreats 100
百聞不如一見 is a Chinese proverb that means “Seeing once is better than hearing one hundred times” which is similar to the idea of “Seeing is believing.”
You can also get the idea, “Seeing for oneself is better than hearing from many others.”
If you break it down directly, you get “100 hears/listens (is) not as-good (as) one sight.”
Persistence to overcome all challenges
百折不撓 is a Chinese proverb that means “Be undaunted in the face of repeated setbacks.”
More directly translated, it reads, “[Overcome] a hundred setbacks, without flinching.” 百折不撓 is of Chinese origin but is commonly used in Japanese and somewhat in Korean (same characters, different pronunciation).
This proverb comes from a long, and occasionally tragic story of a man that lived sometime around 25-220 AD. His name was Qiao Xuan, and he never stooped to flattery but remained an upright person at all times. He fought to expose the corruption of higher-level government officials at great risk to himself.
Then when he was at a higher level in the Imperial Court, bandits were regularly capturing hostages and demanding ransoms. But when his own son was captured, he was so focused on his duty to the Emperor and the common good that he sent a platoon of soldiers to raid the bandits' hideout, and stop them once and for all even at the risk of his own son's life. While all of the bandits were arrested in the raid, they killed Qiao Xuan's son at first sight of the raiding soldiers.
Near the end of his career, a new Emperor came to power, and Qiao Xuan reported to him that one of his ministers was bullying the people and extorting money from them. The new Emperor refused to listen to Qiao Xuan and even promoted the corrupt Minister. Qiao Xuan was so disgusted that in protest, he resigned from his post as minister (something almost never done) and left for his home village.
His tombstone reads “Bai Zhe Bu Nao” which is now a proverb used in Chinese culture to describe a person of strong will who puts up stubborn resistance against great odds.
My Chinese-English dictionary defines these 4 characters as “keep on fighting despite all setbacks,” “be undaunted by repeated setbacks,” and “be indomitable.”
Our translator says it can mean “never give up” in modern Chinese.
Although the first two characters are translated correctly as “repeated setbacks,” the literal meaning is “100 setbacks” or “a rope that breaks 100 times.” The last two characters can mean “do not yield” or “do not give up.”
Most Chinese, Japanese, and Korean people will not take this absolutely literal meaning but will instead understand it as the title suggests above. If you want a single big word definition, it would be indefatigability, indomitableness, persistence, or unyielding.
See Also: Tenacity | Fortitude | Strength | Perseverance | Persistence
百聞は一見に如かず is the Japanese version of an ancient Chinese proverb that means “Seeing once is better than hearing one hundred times.”
It is the rough equivalent of “seeing is believing,” “one eye-witness is better than many hearsays,” or “a picture is worth a thousand words.”
Sometimes it's simply more prudent to verify with your own eyes.
Note: Because this selection contains some special Japanese Hiragana characters, it should be written by a Japanese calligrapher.
敵を知り己を知れば百戦危うからず is the longer/full Japanese version of this proverb. This means “Know your enemy, know yourself, and you will not fear a hundred battles.”
Others will translate this as “Know thy enemy, know thyself, yields victory in one hundred battles.”
Note: Because this selection contains some special Japanese Hiragana characters, it should be written by a Japanese calligrapher.
Korean Only
百折不屈 is a Korean proverb that means “indomitable spirit,” at least, that is the way it is commonly translated in martial arts circles (Taekwondo, Hapkido, etc.).
The literal translation is “[one] hundred [times] broken [still] don't succumb.”
Or more naturally translated, “Even if attacked/beaten one hundred times, still be undaunted/indomitable.”
Notes:
Some will say this is one long word rather than a proverb.
This is also a proverb/word in Chinese though rarely used in modern times.
A 100-year-old is but a traveler passing through this life
一正压百邪 is an ancient Chinese proverb and idiom that means “One Justice Can Overpower a Hundred Evils.”
While this proverb is famous in China, it has been around so long that its origins have been forgotten.
It could be something that Confucius or one of his disciples said, but no one can say for sure.
百胜难虑敌三折乃良医 is a Chinese proverb that literally translates as: [Even a general who has won a] hundred victories [may be] hard put to see through the enemy's [strategy], [but one who has] broken [his] arm three [times] [will] be a good doctor.
Figuratively, this means: One cannot always depend on past successes to guarantee future success but one can always learn from lessons drawn from failure.
See Also: Failure - Mother of Success | Experience - Mother of Success | Fall Down 7 Times Get Up 8 | Hard Knocks
百聞不如一見 is a proverb that means “Better to see something once rather than hear about it one hundred times” or “Telling me about something 100 times is not as good as seeing it once.”
In English, we have the similar proverb of “Seeing is believing” but this has a bit of the “A picture paints a thousand words” meaning too.
Sometimes it's simply more prudent to verify with your own eyes.
鼇 means “legendary turtle” in Chinese. 鼇 is a great mythological turtle that travels the seas. The creature is comparable to the dragon of China, however, it so happens that dragons became a bit more famous as history progressed. In modern Chinese, this character can just refer to a large sea turtle.
Note: 鼇 can be pronounced in Korean but this is a very rare Korean Hanja form - it hasn't been used in Korea for at least a few hundred years (even before they switched to Hangul characters).
知彼知己百戰不殆 is from Sun Tzu's (Sunzi's) Art of War. It means that if you know and understand the enemy, you also know yourself, and thus with this complete understanding, you cannot lose.
This proverb is often somewhat directly translated as “Know the enemy and know yourself, and you can fight a hundred battles without defeat.”
It can also be translated as “If you know both yourself and your enemy, you can come out of hundreds of battles without danger,” or “Know your enemy, know yourself, and your victory will not be threatened.”
射手 means archer, shooter, or marksman in Chinese, Japanese Kanji, and old Korean Hanja.
Depending on the context, it can also mean “goal-getter” in Chinese. This would also be the word for a bowman.
射手 is modern in Asia, meaning that it's only been in use for a few hundred years. However, the more ancient version of the archer is often not even recognized by the current generation of Chinese and Japanese people.
The first character means “shoot” or “fire” (in the context of a gun or bow). It's also a suffix for radioactive things (in the context of chemistry) - radioactive things “fire off” electrons. In Japanese, the first Kanji is a short name and suffix for archery.
The second character means “hand,” but the hand can also mean a person, in the same way, that a “farmhand” is a person in English.
勤 is a single character that means diligence or “sense of duty” in Chinese and Korean (also understood in Japanese but not commonly seen as a stand-alone Kanji).
As a single character on a wall scroll, this will only be seen with this meaning. However, it can also mean industrious, hardworking, frequent, regular, constant, energy, zeal, fortitude, or virility.
In Buddhism, this can represent vīrya (viriya), the idea of energy, diligence, enthusiasm, or effort. It can be defined as an attitude of gladly engaging in wholesome activities, and it functions to cause one to accomplish wholesome or virtuous actions. Some Buddhists may even define this as “manliness” (a definition from a hundred years ago, before equality).
If you or someone you know is a hard worker (or needs a reminder to be diligent), then this is the wall scroll to have in your/their office.
鼈 refers to a species of turtle.
鼈 is Trionyx Sinensis.
鼈 refers to different turtles in different languages. See individual language notes below:
Japanese: 鼈 means “snapping turtle” or “mud turtle.” But rarely used as a single Kanji like this in Japanese.
Chinese: 鼈 means soft-shelled turtle. A specific species, Trionyx Sinensis is native to Asia.
In China, this species is related to the “wang ba,” a soft-shelled turtle sometimes known in English as a banjo turtle (due to its long neck, and general shape). Unfortunately, there is a word, “wang ba dan” which means the egg of this species of turtle. That term has come to mean “bastard” in Chinese (a turtle hatches from an abandoned egg, and does not know who his mother or father is). 鼈 is not a good selection for a wall scroll if your audience is Chinese.
In Korean, this character can be pronounced (though most Koreans would have to look it up in a dictionary). It has not been in common use in Korea for at least a few hundred years.
General notes: You may notice that the bottom half of this character is the same as some other turtle-related titles. That bottom half is actually an ancient character that means “toad.” Though not seen in this way today, most turtle-related characters hold the meaning of “a toad with a shell” in their ancient origin. That toad character is rarely used alone anymore but you can see what it looks like in the image to the right.
身土不二 (Shindofuni) is originally a Buddhist concept or proverb referring to the inseparability of body-mind and geographical circumstances.
This reads, “Body [and] earth [are] not two.”
Other translations or matching ideas include:
Body and land are one.
Body and earth can not be separated.
Body earth sensory curation.
You are what you eat.
Indivisibility of the body and the land (because the body is made from food and food is made from the land).
Going further, this speaks of our human bodies and the land from which we get our food being closely connected. This phrase is often used when talking about natural and organic vegetables coming directly from the farm to provide the healthiest foods in Japan.
Character notes: 身(shin) in this context does not just mean your physical body but a concept including both body and mind.
土 (do) refers to the soil, earth, clay, land, or in some cases, locality. It's not the proper name of Earth, the planet. However, it can refer to the land or realm we live in.
Japanese note: This has been used in Japan, on and off, since 1907 as a slogan for a governmental healthy eating campaign (usually pronounced as shindofuji instead of the original shindofuni in this context). It may have been hijacked from Buddhism for this propaganda purpose, but at least this is “healthy propaganda.”
Korean note: The phrase 身土不二 was in use by 1610 A.D. in Korea, where it can be found in an early medical journal.
In modern South Korea, it's written in Hangul as 신토불이. Korea used Chinese characters (same source as Japanese Kanji) as their only written standard form of the language until about a hundred years ago. Therefore, many Koreans will recognize this as a native phrase and concept.
See Also: Strength and Love in Unity
The pot calls the kettle black
五十步笑百步 is a Chinese proverb that means the one who retreats 50 paces mocks the one who retreats 100 paces.
During the Warring States Period of what is now China (475 - 221 B.C.), the King of Wei was in love with war. He often fought with other kingdoms just for spite or fun.
One day, the King of Wei asked the philosopher Mencius, “I love my people, and all say I do the best for them. I move the people from famine-stricken areas to places of plenty and transport grains from rich areas to the poor. Nobody goes hungry in my kingdom, and I treat my people far better than other kings. But why does the population of my kingdom not increase, and why does the population of other kingdoms not decrease?”
Mencius answered, “Since you love war, I will make this example: When going to war, and the drums beat to start the attack, some soldiers flee for their lives in fear. Some run 100 paces in retreat, and others run 50 steps. Then the ones who retreated 50 paces laugh and taunt those who retreated 100 paces, calling them cowards mortally afraid of death. Do you think this is reasonable?
The King of Wei answered, “Of course not! Those who run 50 paces are just as timid as those who run 100 paces.”
Mencius then said, “You are a king who treats his subjects better than other kings treat their people, but you are so fond of war that your people suffer from great losses in battle. Therefore, your population does not grow. While other kings allow their people to starve to death, you send your people to die in war. Is there any difference?”
This famous conversation led to the six-character proverb shown here. It serves as a warning to avoid hypocrisy. It goes hand-in-hand with the western phrase, “The pot calls the kettle black,” or the Biblical phrase, “Before trying to remove a splinter from your neighbor's eye, first remove the plank from your own eye.”
The following table may be helpful for those studying Chinese or Japanese...
Title | Characters | Romaji (Romanized Japanese) | Various forms of Romanized Chinese | |
Hearing a Hundred Times is Not as Good as Seeing Once | 百聞不如一見 百闻不如一见 | bǎi wén bù rú yī jiàn bai3 wen2 bu4 ru2 yi1 jian4 bai wen bu ru yi jian baiwenburuyijian | pai wen pu ju i chien paiwenpujuichien |
|
Undaunted After Repeated Setbacks | 百折不撓 百折不挠 | hyaku setsu su tou hyakusetsusutou hyaku setsu su to | bǎi zhé bù náo bai3 zhe2 bu4 nao2 bai zhe bu nao baizhebunao | pai che pu nao paichepunao |
Seeing is Believing | 百聞は一見に如かず | hyakubun wa ikken ni shikazu hyakubunwaikkennishikazu hyakubun wa iken ni shikazu | ||
Know Your Enemy, Know Yourself, and Win 100 Battles | 敵を知り己を知れば百戦危うからず | teki o shi ri o no o shi re ba hya ku sen aya u ka ra zu | ||
Indomitable Spirit | 百折不屈 | bǎi shé bù qū bai3 she2 bu4 qu1 bai she bu qu baishebuqu | pai she pu ch`ü paishepuchü pai she pu chü |
|
Inspire with redoubled courage | 勇気百倍 | yuuki hyaku bai yuukihyakubai yuki hyaku bai | ||
Even The 100-Foot Bamboo Can Grow One More Foot | 百尺竿頭更進一步 百尺竿头更进一步 | bǎi chǐ gān tóu gèng jìng yī bù bai3 chi3 gan1 tou2 geng4 jing4 yi1 bu4 bai chi gan tou geng jing yi bu baichigantougengjingyibu | pai ch`ih kan t`ou keng ching i pu pai chih kan tou keng ching i pu |
|
Life is Short | 百歲光陰如過客 百岁光阴如过客 | bǎi suì guāng yīn rú guò kè bai3 sui4 guang1 yin1 ru2 guo4 ke4 bai sui guang yin ru guo ke baisuiguangyinruguoke | pai sui kuang yin ju kuo k`o paisuikuangyinjukuoko pai sui kuang yin ju kuo ko |
|
One Justice Can Overpower 100 Evils | 一正壓百邪 一正压百邪 | yī zhèng yā bǎi xié yi1 zheng4 ya1 bai3 xie2 yi zheng ya bai xie yizhengyabaixie | i cheng ya pai hsieh ichengyapaihsieh |
|
You May Learn from Victory, You Will Learn from Failure | 百勝難慮敵三折乃良醫 百胜难虑敌三折乃良医 | bǎi shèng nán lǜ dí sān zhé nǎi liáng yī bai3 sheng4 nan2 lv4 di2 san1 zhe2 nai3 liang2 yi1 bai sheng nan lv di san zhe nai liang yi | pai sheng nan lü ti san che nai liang i | |
Seeing is Believing | 百聞不如一見 百闻不如一见 | bǎi wén bù rú yí jiàn bai3 wen2 bu4 ru2 yi2 jian4 bai wen bu ru yi jian baiwenburuyijian | pai wen pu ju i chien paiwenpujuichien |
|
Legendary Turtle | 鼇 | áo / ao2 / ao | ||
Know Your Enemy, Know Yourself, and You Cannot Lose | 知彼知己百戰不殆 知彼知己百战不殆 | zhí bǐ zhí jī bǎi zhàn bú dài zhi2 bi3 zhi2 ji1 bai3 zhan4 bu2 dai4 zhi bi zhi ji bai zhan bu dai zhibizhijibaizhanbudai | chih pi chih chi pai chan pu tai | |
Archer | 射手 | i te / sha shu ite / shashu | shè shǒu / she4 shou3 / she shou / sheshou | |
Diligence | 勤 | kin | qín / qin2 / qin | ch`in / chin |
Japanese Snapping Turtle Chinese Soft Shell Turtle | 鼈 | suppon / supon | biē / bie1 / bie | pieh |
Body and Earth in Unity | 身土不二 | shindofuni / shindofuji | ||
The one who retreats 50 paces mocks the one to retreats 100 | 五十步笑百步 | wù shí bù xiào bǎi bù wu4 shi2 bu4 xiao4 bai3 bu4 wu shi bu xiao bai bu wushibuxiaobaibu | wu shih pu hsiao pai pu wushihpuhsiaopaipu |
|
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. |
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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!
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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.
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.
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.
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.
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