This might well be a tag as Mark Twain saw it then, "pinned to the clothes," used as a shorthand note or reminder. --The middle three characters means "Mr. L--", apparently the customer. --The first character in a smaller size has to be rotate by 90% to the left and it is "Guang" which can mean: light; ray; honor; smooth, or shining, etc. So, it may be possible: "The item is to be ironed." --The last character is an old-styled character "Sheng" which means:litre [volume]; arise;raise; advance; hoist, etc. So, it may be possible: "Hang it up." I am just guessing, but one thing is certain: all characters are genuinely Chinese words. this ________________________________ From: Mark Twain Forum on behalf of Harold Bush Sent: Mon 6/27/2011 11:49 AM To: [log in to unmask] Subject: Re: Translation of Chinese characters in Roughing It illustration I'm looking at p. 392, with 5 characters: mostly nonsense, evidently; it would be interesting to figure out where the heck they came from. Or why MT would not take 5 minutes to find a Chinese person to put something real and significant ... but I was just reading this morning about the horrible treatment of the Chinese at that time, so I guess it amounts to a sort of contempt/disinclination to take them seriously enough to use actual Chinese characters, and to make up complete drivel. As a group they make zero sense. from top to bottom they are: a phony -- made up?? this one is the most suspect and clearly just scrawled drivel row: as in a row of houses or of crops, or people, seats, or anything 3rd & 4th together = mister, Mr. 5th = more nonsense: illegible ps: in case anyone has grand delusions about my Longfellow-like language skills, these were analyzed by my dear wife; no I am not quite capable of doing this alone, just got me curious so I called her over. here's a link in google books, FYI: books.google.com/books?id=BKgvAAAAMAAJ&pg=PR11&dq=chapter+54+of+Roughing+It&hl=en&ei=p7EIToPCOuGosAK66cnGDQ&sa=X&oi=book_result&ct=result&resnum=1&ved=0CC0Q6AEwAA#v=onepage&q&f=false On Sun, Jun 26, 2011 at 12:25 PM, Scott Holmes <[log in to unmask]>wrote: > Just as a matter of curiosity, is there a translation of the > illustration in chapter 54 of Roughing It? I had assumed that it > represented a laundry tag. Mark notes that many Chinese, in Virginia > City, were employed in the laundry business and always attached a tag or > bill to cleaned clothing. > > I asked a friend, from mainland China, but she was unable to provide a > clear translation. She did think that it probably represented or was > possibly found as part of a shrine. Mark also spend some time in this > chapter discussing how the Chinese deal with their dead. > > > -- Harold K. Bush, Ph.D Professor of English Saint Louis University St. Louis, MO 63108 314-977-3616 (w); 314-771-6795 (h) <www.slu.edu/x23809.xml>