Need help about chinese ideograms

[Lolo_the_french]

Hello everybody,

I'm french and I don't know nothing about chinese ideograms.

My parents just come back from a trip in China and they offer me two pictures with some ideograms but I don't understand what's written....

Could I send by mail a picture of these ideograms to somebody of you, and perhaps he would be able to translate them ?

Thank's a lot,

Laurent Samaille.

[elina]

Why not post your picture here by at first putting it on an online free album, then make a link here? I think there are many people can help you here.

And here is some information may help you with understanding Chinese character making method:

http://www.chinese-forums.com/index.php?/topic/6305-looking-for-thes-types-of-chinese-words

[Lolo_the_french]

good idea, so I post the pictures on http://ideograms.site.voila.fr/china.html

Thanks a lot and have a good night.

[jukebox]

These two pictures are calligraphy works, but the handwriting is very illegible for me.

Maybe someone who is familiar with traditional Chinese characters and calligraphy could give you more explanation.

The first picuture is a poem, namely, five-character quatrain. But I can't get the main idea from the scanty recognized characters.

The second one is a brief biography of Sima Xiangru.

[elina]

Although I'm a Beijing native, I always feel lost when seeing 草书 like that in your pictures. I can only recognize:

1.喜庆有余图 in your first picture, possible meaning(my English is not very good, so do not expect an exact translation ): joyful drawing

2.司马相如字长卿，蜀郡成都人 in your second picture, meaning: 司马相如, name of an ancient person, his another name is 长卿, who lived in Cheng2 Du1 in Si4 Chuan1 province.

Please wait for other 大虾 / talented people to give it a go.

[skylee]

Re the second picture. It is about Sima Xiangru, a famous court artist of Han Dynasty. I am not good at reading handwriting and this is what I can recognise.

司馬相如字長卿，蜀郡成都人，西漢辭賦家。武帝時，因獻賦得以召見，任命為郎。曾通使邛筰有功，著x有《子虛》、《上林》、《大人》等。具為極華麗雕琢富於文采x寓諷諫世人之意，史記、漢書皆有傳x。

A rough translation is like this -

Sima Xiangru, whose style name was Qiangqing, was from Chengdu in Shu (nowadays Sichuan). He was a writer of "Ci" and "Fu" in West Han Dynasty. During the reign of Emperor Han Wudi, he was summoned by the emperor because of his "Fu" writing, and was appointed to the office of "Lang". He was a successful envoy to Qiong and Zuo. His works included "Zixu", "Shanglin" and "Daren", which were all very elaborate and rich in style, and with occasional criticism of the ways of the world. His life was recorded in history books "Shiji" and "Hanshu".

[skylee]

Re the first picture. I suppose it is ->

喜慶有餘圖 (rejoice in affluence)

何須覓心境 (no need to look for the right mood)

無思風和雨 (no thoughts about the wind and rain)

垂釣江湖上 (fish upon rivers and lakes)

日日慶有餘 (celebrate each day for the affluence)

Hope it is not very wrong.

[Lolo_the_french]

Hello !

Thank's a lot for your answers.

And if one day you need help about french translation, ask me and I'll annswer you with pleasure

;-)