TEN THOUSAND FOO

Over on one of the language nerd pages someone posted the character for 'zero' in Chinese and Kanji. In meme format. Which resulted in multiple likes and wows. My favourite character in the numerics, however, is a scorpion.

That is to say, it started off as a scorpion. Eventually that word for scorpion fell into disuse, and was repurposed. In sealscript and prior script forms it still looks like a scorpion, but the modern script version bears less resemblance to the nasty creepy crawly:

萬

It crops up in the name of a Chinatown restaurant (萬壽宮餐廳 'maan sau gung chan teng'; Grant Place Restaurant, located at 737 Washington Street, San Francisco, CA 94108 Tel.: 415-982-3705) where it means ten thousand long lives (an auspicious phrase), as well as the standard phrase 萬富 ('maan fu'), a myriad good fortunes, which shows up in too many contexts to count, as well as well wishes.

It also shows up in the roundels on modern famille verte, jaune, or rose porcelain, especially utalitarian objects. Cups, bowls, plates, saucers, teapots, etcetera.

Whether sau or fu depends on the manufacturer.

The version shown above predates seal script (篆書 'suen syu'), being a scriptform employed for bronze inscriptions from two thousand years bce to about the third or fourth century bce: 金文 ('kam man') or 鐘鼎文 ('jung ding man'). Note that formerly 金文 was also sometimes referred to as Greater Seal Script (大篆 'daai suen'), thus conflating it with later styles.


I am fondly imagining the character above happily whispering "booga booga booga" to itself, thinking that it's still potent and frightening. And perhaps it lives under people's beds.


Booga booga booga!



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