rss feedEvery day, good fortune is always welcome
My wife and son are visiting my mother-in-law in China. Recently, they all went to a daisy show to have fun and let our son see the sights and gaze at people.
Either my wife, Dan, or my sister-in-law, Yu, snapped this photograph of dome-shaped yellow flowers with a red Chinese character.
So, thank you to my wife or sister-in-law for doing so.
You might recognize this as the Chinese character “fu” – which shows up in words including the name of Fujian province and its capital city, Fuzhou.
The English-Chinese dictionary from Oxford University Press defines the word – pronounced in a lower to higher tone – as “good fortune, blessing, happiness.”
Another word that uses this character is “fuqi,” which translates literally as “good fortunate air.”
But it is commonly understood as “happy lot” or “good fortune.”
I like “good fortunate air.” I like “fu.” And I like “good fortune, blessing, happiness.”
Also, a ”happy lot” is nice to have in this day and age – in fact, on any day in any age.
I’m on board.
So, I thought I’d share this image from China.
Also, I know when it comes to Chinese restaurants in the United States, the word “fortune” is often associated with cookies.
Interestingly, though, fortune cookies most likely are not from China.
On a side note, Athima Chansanchai, my former newspaper colleague, passes along this link to the Philippine National Red Cross to help flood victims in the Philippines.
The link, she says, was sent by Rene Astudillo, former executive director of the Asian American Journalists Association.
