Can you translate this Chinese character?

January 17, 2012 7:53 PM

Can someone please translate this character (or characters?) for me? It was written by a Chinese man; unfortunately that is all I know. Thank you!
posted by AONeal79 to Writing & Language (18 answers total)

AONeal79, your photo isn't showing up -- try posting it again?
posted by suedehead at 7:55 PM on January 17, 2012 [1 favorite]

Response by poster: Sorry about that - here is a link: http://www.flickr.com/photos/angieoneal/6718323007/
posted by AONeal79 at 8:25 PM on January 17, 2012

Here it is as a link.
posted by Chocolate Pickle at 8:44 PM on January 17, 2012

My fiancee's guess is 黄, which is the family name Huang (and also "sulfur; yellow" according to the dictionary)
posted by qxntpqbbbqxl at 9:36 PM on January 17, 2012

Er - it's kind of messy handwriting, so I have no idea, really.

Could be the character for wong/huang, as in yellow (the first character), or the character for kong - the last character. It looks like it's been cut off a little bit, though. Were there any other characters next to/below that?
posted by zennish at 9:40 PM on January 17, 2012

Yeah, I couldn't really make out what the character was, but my sense was it was someone's name.
posted by KokuRyu at 9:48 PM on January 17, 2012

Response by poster: I feel like a dork now - the autograph is by Sammo Hung, so are the characters his name?
posted by AONeal79 at 10:52 PM on January 17, 2012

Response by poster: (I'm sorry for being so culturally ignorant!)
posted by AONeal79 at 10:54 PM on January 17, 2012

Response by poster: Here is the larger scan - apologies for not including the western characters the first time around; I didn't know they would relate to the Chinese!
posted by AONeal79 at 10:58 PM on January 17, 2012

Hung is very similar to wong/huang/kong
posted by KokuRyu at 11:01 PM on January 17, 2012

Response by poster: Thanks, KoruRyo - so does that sound plausible? That this is just the Chinese "version" (for lack of a better term) of his surname?
posted by AONeal79 at 11:03 PM on January 17, 2012

Best answer: Sammo Hung's name written in Chinese is 洪金宝, so its probably his name, but stylised just as you would with an English signature. I don't think its just the surname "洪", as that looks to just be the topmost portion.

Chinese characters written in particular styles of calligraphy can look very different from the "normal" way of writing it; see Grass Script (Wikipedia mobile link to get around today's SOPA blackout).
posted by destrius at 11:39 PM on January 17, 2012 [1 favorite]

Makes sense - it's probably 洪, only really messy. His full name is 洪金宝, so yeah, it looks like he scribbled his surname as his autograph.

sammo hung! oh, the nostalgia!
posted by zennish at 11:39 PM on January 17, 2012

curses. destrius has it.
posted by zennish at 11:40 PM on January 17, 2012

And the building in the background is the Los Angeles City Hall. For what it's worth.
posted by mr_roboto at 12:57 AM on January 18, 2012

If you do a google image search for "sammo hung autograph" you get a few similar pictures with signatures, some of which are clearer or don't quite trail off after the first character the way yours does.

Here's two examples.
posted by 6550 at 2:46 AM on January 18, 2012

Was wondering where the water radical ( 氵) for 洪 was and realised it's the dot and long vertical line at the left running the full length of the signature - thought the 共 part was the grass radical (艹) at first. I'm rubbish with handwriting at the best of times, and in autographs ll bets are off.
posted by Abiezer at 4:55 AM on January 18, 2012

Response by poster: Thanks so much, everyone. I'm giving this as a gift to someone who's a big Sammo fan and I wanted to be able to say what the characters said :)
posted by AONeal79 at 3:06 PM on January 18, 2012