Flyleft - I also posted this to a friend who is a specialist in Chinese, but it was late last night and he probably hasn't opened his email yet. Don't feel like a "dope" - Chinese and Japanese characters can be virtually identical.

That pot is exquisite. Lucky you!

fly, I bet rmkitchen (Brooke) can translate that for you.

Hi Fly! Sounds like the mystery will be solved very soon for you. If it isn't by this evening, I can ask my DH to look at it. He is Chinese.

Sable makes a good point. Japanese is quite derivative of Chinese, so the characters look quite similar.

Beautiful pottery! I wonder if we're looking at the artist's name? Will check back later to see what you find out!

Just for fun, and so curious, I'm going to guess it is Japanese. I absolutely LOVE that piece! Beautiful shape and that glaze and color are perfectly exquisite! Lucky You!!!!!

feeling slightly less dopey now :) Thanks in advance for sending it around! If rmkitchen doesn't see it, it sounds like we'll be able to find out anyway.

As I look more around into crystalline glaze, I see that it's not the most spectacular all over look (some pots look like crystal fireworks, almost) but it's got nice subtle lines and gradations, along with the crystal lines. Actually the bottom part of the pot turned out more eye-catching, wrt the desired crystalline look, than the top. Oh well :)

I'm so curious to learn what it is -- maybe it says "made in China" but if so, their studio-pottery imitations have really advanced in quality :)

OK, I sent it off to my son and hopefully the rugrat will answer quickly and more importantly in a language I can understand. LOL! He is a master of texting and shorthand and sometimes he writes me that way and dang If I know what he is saying. Will post back soon! Gotta get back to work.

Deb

Please excuse me butting in. I am a long time lurker on the decorating forum and I also post in Name that Plant forum. I just had to give you this invaluable link. Even if it doesn't solve this question, I think it is something that might come in handy later, judging by your interests.

Cheers,
Dee.

Here is a link that might be useful: Pottery Markings, Chinese & Japanese.

I love that crystalline glaze. Bought a dish with something similar in Maine a few years ago. It plays with the light in the most wonderful way! (Please don't tell me it came from Goodwill...I will cry...)

Deb, thanks! I haven't even started to learn texting...guess I've crossed over to being an old fogy...my thumbs are arthritic anyway LOL

And Dee! DEE! Why have you been hiding your light under a bushel?! That site is *fabulous*, just delicious, and will definitely be helpful. Thanks so much! So do you collect Asian pottery?

...and you've actually brought back some memories for me -- while I was in grad school (mid 80s) I had a day job on the side doing admin. asst. work for a company that's headquarted in Goteborg! Elof Hansson...they had a local office in CT in a town next to where I lived. Oh my gosh, those were fun guys to work with (I was the only female in the office) -- they all looked like the person whose site you connected to. I just googled them and I see they've moved their offices to NY. Did my heart good to see the old logo, though :)

So for many reasons I'm very glad you posted here on this "Name that Pot" thread--hope we'll see more of you around :)

You are more than welcome Flyleft. I don't collect Asian pottery(but do love it), it is just a site I came across once and kept the link because it looked so useful. (Can one be an internet hoarder? lol)

What a lovely bonus that it gave you some good memories. I am happy for you.

Are you the one who did the mosaic on the Steve Irwin memorial wall? I can't quite remember.

Cheers,
Dee.

Dee, may I say "Thank you" too, for that excellent website! That is an exceptional resource and I will be lost in it! Welcome and Thank You!

Dee, hope you are safe from the fires!!!!!

Thankyou for the welcome Bodica. I am so pleased that more than one person is able to use that link. I just knew I had kept it for a good reason.

Cheers,
Dee.

Sorry Bodica, we must have cross posted. I didn't see your question. Yes, I am perfectly safe where I live in a suburb of Melbourne. I do have friends and family who are in the midst of it all. It is a nightmare.....truly. It is amazing though how a tragedy like this brings the community together.

Thankyou for asking.
Cheers,
Dee.

Good call, bodica --I wondered too. We here in the west know from wildfires as well, unfortunately. I'm so glad to hear you're o.k., Dee, although it seems everyone I know from Australia knows someone who has been affected--more than double the worst wildfire fatalities ever, I read. Man....and some of the folks on my Aussie mosaic list are talking about how weird it was to watch news of the fires from their homes in other areas of the country that had just flooded...bizarre times...

And on a somewhat happier topic: yes, good memory! I did make one small contribution to the SI Mural, and someday I hope maybe possibly somehow to make it over there to see Malina on the wall:) (and for my daughter to see the North American Grey Wolf she made as well) No word yet from Terri but I keep hope alive that maybe someday possibly somehow her reaction will make its way to me...

Rats, Amy, I forgot to reply to you - my response was open while you posted...

Um, well, o.k., I won't tell you :)

So since I'm being good, may I see a picture of your crystalline glaze piece? And/or would you share anything you were told about it?

Well Flyleft, most of my Chinese relatives have weighed in this evening on your pottery markings! My dh was perplexed at first by the character on the right. He said the one on the left means "morning." Everyone agrees about that. He thought the one on the right could mean "city." His brother & my sister-in-law & 14 & 16 yr. old nieces, think the word on the right means "book." They told my dh to look at google translate & check out the character under "simplified" Chinese, rather than "traditional" Chinese, which is what he was raised with. The whole family felt the letters looked as though they were written backwards. My s-i-l said it looked like the artist wanted you to hold it in front of a mirror to read it! My dh's first reaction was, "Either someone not Chinese wrote this, or a child did" because the penmanship is not up to snuff.

I don't know Fly, there's definitely some ambiguity here. It will be interesting to hear what the other readers of Chinese have to say.
Best of luck! What ever it says, it sure is pretty!

stinky, thanks so much (and thanks to your relatives too). So hmmm...those are words...how do they relate to a name? I remember from one person I know that someone's name can mean something like "morning joy" or words like that, and be known to us as, say, Mei Ling...do you know what the words would transliterate as if they were to make up a name?

And all I can say re the penmanship: thank *goodness* I wasn't born there, because I'm still smarting from my "worst penmanship" award back in 3rd grade. The calligraphy we had done (it was a performance art thing in NYC) people who are knowledgeable say is very high quality work, and I honestly can't tell the difference between that and this. It's all amazing to me.

Thanks again :) I wonder if I should take a pic in a mirror...

i know chinese and very, very little japanese. the characters don't make sense to me.

if it is indeed 2 characters, the one on the left would make more sense if it's a mirror image, as the brush stroke is all wrong the way it's written now. the one on the right i have no clue.

i'd say it's prob not authentic - probably someone trying to copy but got it wrong.

sorry!

ummm, that's fascinating...I wonder why someone would copy something--what would be being copied, I wonder?

Fly, my piece is by Edgecomb Potters in Maine. Just contemporary stuff...no biggie.

I have a friend who is a prof of Chinese Language at UDub. I sent him an e-mail. We'll see what comes back...

Thanks, Amy. The home page of Edgecomb Potters has some beautiful crystal glaze vases on it, and the collectors' line pieces are very nice too -- I'm *very easy* when it comes to pottery, though--which makes living in the PNW a lot of fun because I can always find things I like. :) I'm sure whatever piece you chose is stunning.

I'll be curious to hear what your friend says. What an odd inscription we have here, on such a pretty piece...it's definitely crystal glaze and sure feels like porcelain, not anything heavier; I wonder what would be being copied. Maybe there's a famous maker of crystal glaze porcelain that this is a knockoff of? But it seems odd, since whoever would knock it off could do a pretty good business as a studio ceramicist in her/his own right, considering the history of crystal glaze...curious. And diverting--much more interesting than our car being in the shop all day :)

Too funny -- I saw your subject and thought "well, my Mandarin is just so-so," but knowing that Japanese is derived from Chinese (although many, MANY Japanese deny this and say the Chinese got their writing system from them -- ridiculous! [by the way, my Japanese husband is not one of those deluded folks]) and that while my Japanese is maa-maa I do have an ace-in-the-hole of shujin, thought I'd take a look.

My immediate thought was "this is backwards!" It looked a little like "first day," although the kanji placement was just wrong, and the strokes, in addition to being backwards (as if photographed in a mirror), are odd. So I showed Mr. Right Now, and he laughed and, in essence, said "this is gobbledygook." (That's my rough translation, but I like it!)

Well, as we say chez nous, gambarimashou!

And FYI, pink's my favorite color so I'll always try to help where pink is involved ....

Hey rm, thanks very much for the new words in my vocabulary :) -- "gambarimasho" means "go for it" or "let's work together to do our best" (acc. to a google search)? And does shujin mean--what...? I found one definition in a slang dictionary--is that what you mean?

And this is so odd...why would someone make a fake signature when the process of crystal glaze is valid in itself and the pot is well-shaped? I wonder if someone's signature *is* a fake signature, or something like that...? There's got to be a reason for this...

And this pink gives pink a good name, to me -- looks nice against our green etched glass dining table :)

My, this is a fascinating exploration. I can not see the glaze so well from the photo but it looks so lovely. The shape is very nice and so balanced. Where was this vase discovered? Maybe it's a lovely piece, handmade, and personally signed to look japanese/chinese? for the maker's pleasure? I still love the look and who ever created this piece, wish we could speak with them.

I know, bodica -- it's like adopting an adult cat from the shelter -- sometimes I look at Mahatma and just try to get him to tell me somehow about his life before he found us...so aggravating! But both of them, this pot and our big guy, are here now with us, at least, and are beautiful and wonderful to pet :)

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When I lived in PRC I had a "chop" made for my parents -- a souvenir. (I also had one made for myself.) My mother likes to use hers on some of her paintings; if you couldn't read Chinese (and in truth, the character for their [my] surname I wouldn't know) you'd think it was a Chinese artist. (Trust me -- she's not! She's now Asian by osmosis [her son-in-law / grandchildren].) But she likes the flair and flavor the Chinese signature gives. Fair enough.

So I wonder if someone was feeling that way when they signed your pot. ??? In your most recent photo, the top right makes the most sense, but not really, if you catch my drift.

Okay, so shujin, in Japanese, is "my husband." Goshujin is "your husband" or "her husband," basically, a husband who is not mine. The go prefix is an honorific, a sign of respect. For one's own husband (partner), it would be inappropriate to use the honorific, so anytime you see shujin it means the speaker's husband. I don't know the slang definition ... hmm.

Gambarimashou's literal translation would be "let's fight," but it implies the same sentiment as the English "good luck," "best wishes," etc. I think it is tons of fun to say! Feels good in the mouth, so to speak. It and wagamama (very, very naughty person / behavior [and by "naughty" I don't mean anything cute or sexual -- I mean someone who's been bad]) are maybe my two favorite words to say, just for the way they roll off the tongue.

My two year-old (the one with special needs), his all-time favorite word is sakana: it means "fish." He is a sakana fiend! We're vegan, and we just received some books from the PJ Library, one of which is about gefilte fish; he went bananas looking at the pictures in there, "sakana sakana sakana!" There was a lot of Yiddish in the book, so I was trying to explain the sundry phrases to the children and I thought "my kiddos are the future!"

O.K., bodica, I'm so easy that I think that four-pic piece you made up is beautiful in itself! I love the way it shows the crystal lines on the sides of the pot. Your beautiful art (I know that's not what you were doing, but it's what you did :)) definitely makes up for a conclusive story on what the markings mean :) I'm serious, really -- I'm going to print it out on the color printer to keep in honor of so many folks trying to figure out what is evidently someone's practical joke. *Thank you* for it.

And rm, just put "shujin" into google and see the slang dictionary definition. (I do love that dictionary but it makes me feel WAY out of touch.) Oops about your vegan sakana-loving boy -- where did you go wrong? :) JUST KIDDING -- although if you show him too many Yiddish cookbooks maybe he'll end up the foodie Alex P. Keaton to your Steven and Elyse -- gambarimashou with that :)

oh that is so, so pretty. Was this another thrift store find? I'm so jealous. It's very much my style (and one I bet I could get "past" Hubby).

PJ Library is a wonderful resource for Jewish / Interfaith families with small children: each month they send the children a "relevant" book. My two year-old received a darling little book about Purim and making hamantaschen (it's so cute: a family of raccoons and their skunk, beaver and bear cub friends help, and some of these animals are drawn wearing yarmulkes -- I think it's hilarious), and my older son received the Five Little Gefiltes book. Not a cookbook, but a cute way of introducing Jewish traditions and Yiddish expressions to the littles.

The two year-old loves Hebrew folk songs (Zum Gali Gali, Bim Bam, Boker Tov ...) and challah, and it is so amusing given that I'm an atheist and his father is a barely-cultural Shinto Buddhist. (I supply most of that culture for our family -- it's my children's heritage and I think it's interesting, but I didn't grow up with it so I've no need to separate myself from it or feel stifled by it.)

If one day the children want to eat meat or even be a rabbi or Buddhist monk I think that would be wonderful! I want my children to be able to be themselves, and it would be the ultimate compliment to my parenting that I gave them the freedom to follow their own path, not one which answers anyone else's call, or that they'd be fearful of disappointing me. Of course, there'll still be no meat in my home (we're vegan for ethical reasons), but I'm a pretty live-and-let-live person. It's one of my favorite things about myself. (besides my humility, that is!)

So Flyleft just as I suspected, it took two email communications with the DS to get a complete answer! He said that the characters don't mean anything, it is just a drawing. He said that it was not Chinese or Japanese characters. So his answer seems to support what has already been posted above. It is still a beautiful piece of work though.

Deb

I wondered why my family members were struggling so much to make heads or tails of this! My dh, especially, was laughing, & insisting it didn't really mean anything, but I put everyone under pressure to "find something!" When pressed upon, they did, but they all felt it looked odd. The characters do *resemble* "morning" "city" "book" (backwards of course) but are not true renderings of those words. This signature must have been created for a Western audience...one who wouldn't do any research to decipher it!

It kind of reminds me of the symbol Prince used back when he was The Artist Formerly Known As Prince!

So mcps, you're thinking that Prince made her vase? Wow, who knew he was so multi-talented. Wonder how it got from Mpls (isn't that/wasn't that his home area?) to the Goodwill in PNW (isn't that Flyleft's home area?).

All I know is it's a beautiful piece and I'm going to spend the day Goodwill shopping.

What a neat post to read through, I've learned a lot from it!

Flyleft .. you find the absolute coolest things out thrifting!

Does anyone remember the stamps that were produced with the image upside or something several years ago that turned out to be really valuable because of the mistake? Knowing your luck, flyleft, you've probably got something similar on your hands. :)

I *knew* my path would intersect with Prince's, sooner or later :) (just kidding :))

Deborah, stinky--I can only imagine what the opposite situation would be -- someone imitating the alphabet and coming up with letters that aren't anything specifically but have curves, loops and lines--would be very funny :)

I still am wondering who the heck made this pot. pbrisjar and zipdee, yes, this came from my 'favorite gallery' :) - the hunt itself is as much fun as anything else. I find more quotidian things as well, though :) e.g. I also found two new drum shades, same size, to fit the two mid-century table-lamps I had found at various times-- I had wanted to 'unify' them a bit by having the same shade on them, despite the fact that one's ceramic and one's glass (both the same height).

rmk, I love your attitude, both generally and specifically :). Not many vegans will say that they won't mind if their kids grow up to eat meat --really admirably and inspiringly open-minded.

And Shinto: how fascinating. When I think of it I think of Miyazaki's "Spirited Away" -- I just googled and found a (what I think is) nice piece on it--what do you think?...makes me want to see it again right now :)-- Thanks for that!

Here is a link that might be useful: maybe we'll sit and watch it tonight with this article

Thank you flyleft, I was delighted seeing the images together also! I even tried to remove the white line but don't know how. May I ask, what's the cloth?
This has been such fun, love seeing how everyone wanted to help, so hate to see it end. One fact is absolute, this was beautifully created. The marking is so nicely and artistically done, even if it's meaning remains a secret, that's interesting also. Wouldn't it be fascinating if the artist is a GardenWeb'er and would see this and post? Of course, then we would be busy collecting proof!
Anyway, thank you for all the fun and letting us see this lovely piece!

You know, to me, It kind of looks like a mutilated "Nihon" ("Japan" in Japanese - the characters are "origin" and "sun") by someone who didn't know what he was doing.

Back in the 70's when I was young and, in the words of Moms Mabley, "just as cute as I wanted to be," I had a dress that suited me right down to the ground...it was a narrow winter white cotton sheath with a mandarin collar and a long, wide sash, and it was covered in big black Asian calligraphic characters. I wore it and wore it, until one day I was standing in the will-call line at the theatre, feeling fabulous, and a Chinese family walked by, did a quick double-take, and burst out laughing.
I will never know what my dress said, but I didn't wear it again outside my house!

bronwynsmom, that's scary! Now we need our clothing translated before wearing in public? LOL

bodica, the cloth was felt glued on as a table protector to keep the bottom from scratching.

bronwynsmom, LOL I have to admit to laughing inwardly when I see silly things written in English on t-shirts made in Japan or wherever that tourists were wearing (in NYC)...like "kitty morning table" or the like...but 1) I wouldn't laugh out loud at someone who probably doesn't know what they're saying and 2) I just can't see why someone would do that to the bottom of a beautiful handmade vase. Oh well...it's still pretty :)

Hard to believe someone would go to all the trouble of signing the bottom of such a nice piece of work with gibberish. Since it's not Chinese or Japanese, I wonder if it could be Korean?

Also had to add, we have that movie too, in fact, my DD named one of her does Chihiro.

the flip image still doesn't make sense to me...

i don't know korean but doesn't look like general korean to me but i could be wrong.

i wonder if someone thought they'd put some asian looking characters on the bottom to make it more authentic?

Weird, isn't it, littledog?

ummm, the "more authentic" wouldn't necessarily come because of an asian-looking signature, it is inherent in the quality of glaze. Which is why I'm so puzzled. It's definitely a crystal glaze, not some sort of fake coating material or something, and it's a beautifully shaped pot. If it were "made in China" I would think it would just say so, as many other pots do.

Engrish.com

:-)

i guess i was thinking more along the line of:

made in china = cheap, bad quality

asian looking characters = potentially antique / valuable.

i have no clue about pottery or glaze. just trying to think of a reason why one would put asian looking characters onto something.

great discussion. great pot!

circuspeanut, you beat me to posting that site.

I also like this site that is dedicated to the misuse of Chinese Characters in Western Culture. There is a link to bad tattoos that is interesting...

Here is a link that might be useful: Hanzi Smatter