Calligraphy in my yard, perhaps.

August 16, 2012 9:20 PM

This patio seems to be calligraphy. I can't read it.

Can any chinese reader tell me that the chinese gentleman who built this patio may have been saying something.
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posted by ptm to Home & Garden (5 answers total)

Not intended to represent a character as such in my opinion, though perhaps a nod to the swastika-like pattern which you see on buildings etc. from time to time as it's lucky. That's called 万字不到头 which means "never-ending wan character" - wan 万 meaning 10,000 or lots/myriad and so the whole concept being of plenty, long life (万寿无疆) etc. So a character in that sense if so.
Either that or a Space Invader!
posted by Abiezer at 10:36 PM on August 16, 2012

It is not recognizable as a hanzi to me. It may be the pattern that Abiezer posits, or nothing at all.

I also thought it most resembled a Space Invader!
posted by Tanizaki at 11:12 PM on August 16, 2012

Looks like a space invader, or the tank from Blaster Master.
posted by TrinsicWS at 8:38 AM on August 17, 2012

I agree that it's probably not deliberately trying to be a Chinese character.
posted by tinymegalo at 10:23 AM on August 17, 2012

I notice that there appear to be 4 pipes heading into the ground in that same segment of the patio. There's a possibility that the 4 major arms of the decoration actually document the directions in which the 4 pipes depart that segment. There might be some tees underground, so there could be as many as 6 pipes leaving that segment.
I suggest this because that's what I do. At the junctions of my underground gas lines that cannot be intuited from the visible above-ground fittings, I place a durable marker (usually a clay brick buried so that only an end face is showing). Same thing with water lines.
posted by the Real Dan at 11:20 AM on August 17, 2012