China Page

Cryptic Characters on the Web !!

Did you just encounter a web-page or newsthread containing statements like
"¦ê³s¥xÆW·s¦Ë¥H¥_¤å¥v¤u§@«Ç¡]¤T®l¤T¨¤´é¤u§@«Ç¡B¦Á¤î¤ô ªð¸}¤u§@«Ç¡B¤E¥÷¤å¥v¤u§@«Ç¡^¨ó§U¨ä¸ê®Æ¦¬¶°" ?

Were you wondering what this meant ? Well, I was. It turned out to be plain Chinese, and was originally intended to look like this:

The above sentence actually means:
"Well, I don't know what this means but I have it straight from a Taiwanese server"

Of course, there are a lot of languages on the internet that use each their respective character sets. It just tackled me that there where these "nonsense" characters on my web. I wanted to see them as the author intended them to look. So, here is what you need to have Chinese in your MS-Windows browser (and in your Explorer, and in your Winhelp, and even in your "Start" menue, if you happen to use German Windows). In addition to Chinese it supports Japanese and Korean encodings.
If you install this you may even telnet in Chinese, for instance at the National Central Library of Taiwan.
The two most prominent encodings for Chinese are Big5, wich is a defacto standard in commercial Hong Kong and Taiwan, and "GB" which is the standard with the two computers in the Peoples Republic of China. Normally you are set right with "Big5 Fan Ti"

Important update: The two most widely spread web browsers, Netscape Communicator 4.0+ and MS Internet Explorer 4.0+ now fully support international languages. The only thing you need are the appropriate fonts...
You can get fonts for Japanese, Chinese (Big5), Chinese (GB), Korean and Pan-European at:

http://www.microsoft.com/msdownload/ieplatform/lang/lang.htm

Yes, Netscape users need them too... simply install the appropriate fonts, go to "Edit / Preferences / Appearance / Fonts", choose the language and select the appropriate font:

for Japanese choose "MS Gothic"
for simplified Chinese(GB) choose "MS Hei"
for traditional Chinese(Big5) choose "MingLiU"
for Korean choose "GulimChe"

for both the proportional and fixed font.

If you have Office97 there should be a directory "fareast" somewhere on the CD, there are some even better fonts you can use, eg. "MS Mincho" for Japanese.

Some pages will use the appropriate font automatically, for some you must select the language in "View / Encoding"

Whyohwhy?

The interesting thing about Chinese is that Chinese characters don't represent phonetic entities, like we are used to, but rather represent entire words or ideas. In principle, you can read Chinese without knowing Chinese (Much like I write English without knowing English). The picture of a horse actually means horse. Pretty easy, isn't it ? What a pity that it's bare nonsense. Of course throughout time the pictures became stylised and their meaning shifted through some levels of abstraction. And if two words sound the same, why not use the same picture for both ?

Let's have a look at the writing at the top of the page,. The first symbol means "China". That's quite obvious. No, really. The Chinese traditionally regard their country as the center of the world, and the rectangle cut in the middle means "middle" or "center". The second symbol means "writing" or "literature". It consists of a cross, the most simple "mark" of writing, and something you can feel free to interpret as the lid of an inkpot. Together they mean "Chinese writing".

Go Chinese

Chinese ghost stories are kind of sexy. For the dyslexically challenged I recommend the Hongkong film by this same name (A Chinese Ghost Story).
My No1 recomendation for you to go Chinese is to read the Master Li books by Barry Hughart. The stories are all set in an ancient China that never was but is the chineseest of all Chinas that ever were.
They're all kind of crime stories, but with lots of myths, fantasy and humor.
They are, in no particular order

The Bridge of Birds, which is the best
The Story of the Stone, which comes next and
Eight Skilled Gentlemen, just for a chillout

If you feel an urge, drop me a message. Otherwise, or if you're eager to read more of my concoctions, or if you appreciate an abundance of commata return to the title page.

Wait for your number to be called.