A SIGN!!!
Damn! The Japanese discover everything first. 
djm
…and I bet it’s for sale in handy, affordable plots…
Just have to evict those pesky giants or whotnot…
Lovely!
But in so called “real” life (a dubious concept at best), it translates as “Ideal Holiday Village”
and it’s Chinese
(the Promised Land is where I’ve lived for thirty years now: it’s inside)
cheers
b
maybe in Hong Kong…
Denny, that picture ain’t Hong Kong. Trust me on this.
It may very well be in China, however.
Naw…I’ve been to Hong Kong, it ain’t there.
It’s just a ways east from me, here.
(The picture is from the south…looking north)
No, they just usually take something that other people discovered, make it better and sell it cheaper 
The automobile springs to mind…
(not to imply that the Japanese don’t discover things)
In real life Chinese is written in IDEOGRAMS and your strictly literal translation of the “picture grams” contradicts the generic metaphorical thrust of those GRAMS. Your so called translation may be dubious.
Where was the photographer stood 
Great pic.
Slan,
D.
looks like they’re on Johnson mountain from the angle…never been there, but passed close to it.
It’s been a couple of years since I’ve been able to get away…miss it, I do!
Talasiga, I’m sorry, but you don’t make any sense. I have no idea what you mean by ‘generic metaphorical thrust’ in terms of the Chinese writing system.
(And, by the way, for those of you who don’t speak or write Chinese, the word ‘system’ in the last sentence is a bit misleading: for many centuries now, Chinese scholars have identified several different systems which were in play in the period when the writing system was formed. Actually, it’s all a bit of a mess.)
I’ve been learningChinese for most of my life, and teaching it for the last twenty years or so; I live in China, married to a Chinese lady; I’m a teacher of translation and a translator of Chinese literature with a wide international reputation for translating modern and classical poetry.
Trust me on this: my “so-called translation” is about the best you’re going to get.
No hard feelings, but you’re off the beam.
b
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ideogram
I am trying to explain to you my reference to “metaphorical thrust” by the above link but it seems that the common description of chinese writing is itself wrong and so I stand corrected for following the crowd on so say (soy sa).
Thanks for your repartee that has advanced my knowledge.
(if Chinese writing was truly ideogramatic a picture of a thing would represent an idea whose particular meaning would be ascertained by context. For instance (made up example) a picture of a cup of water could mean beverage, hospitality, a pond and so on. The cup of water is a metaphor , see what I mean?)
I see what you mean Talasiga, and I’ll check the Wiki link.
I have a friend (Prof. John Minford, one of the great translators) who reckons Europe could solve all its translation problems by adopting the Chinese script.
It would work like this: since the characters give you more ideas than sounds, there are Mandarin readings (i.e. pronunciations) and Cantonese readings for each character (mandarin xiahai = Cantonese haah hoi), and simliar differing readings for every Chinese dialect (Mandarin chi fan = Shanghai sik veh), as well as Vietnamese, Korean and Japanese readings (e.g. Mandarin xiansheng = Japanese sensei)
so…(with me so far?)
there could be a set way of reading each character in Italian, French, German, Polish and so on.
everybody learns one script, without the need to learn to speak another language.
great idea - I wish it was going to happen, but I’m afraid it’s more like an idea from SF…
(but we can dream)
b
My (simple) understanding is that the values associated with each ideogram element are cultural values, so that you would not only have to transport the characters, but also the cultural assumptions that go with them (?).
e.g. happy or happiness is supposed to be a picture of a pig in the house, but what good is that to another culture that eschews pigs?
djm
I had a similar idea but I am obviously wrong if you accept the wiki article.
I posted the wiki link just a little while ago. Ah, yes I forget - the recent post might be too “old” for you to bother reading.
The past really gets up some people’s noses …
I read your link. It is gibberish to me. Hope you treat that horse well. Its a long way down.
djm
Tyler - You’re confused. The promised Land isn’t in Asia at all.
Well, I’ll be damned! 
