Shashwith Uthappa asked:


A delightful hobby, a satiation for aesthetics, an opportunity to learn about culture, science and technology and meticulous attention to detail. Amalgamate these and you get Philately! It is a hobby engaging one with the sapience of some of the major turning points in history. You go through a tentative journey exploring stamps with historical artifacts, You never know when the sherlock holmes in you could unfold a historic mystery through stamps.

Its a whole new engaging world out there with stamps.You can easily escape the cares of the world and entre into a world of keen observation, using your mind and then slowly having the power to understand the world that once was. If you are a philatelist, you can satiate your appetance for stamps. You just want more! The sense of action and progression is like resembling to art and you experience another sunlit world.

There is good news for pilatelists. On a solitary pursuit, you could just find the rarest of stamp collections at the 23rd Asian International Stamp Exhibition.You will see stamps coming from across boundaries, preserved from large, clumsy and possibly greasy hands. At the commencement of the Exhibition, a stamp sheetlet will be issued to embark the occasion. Using the apparent dissection fallacy, yes, the Tangram as the design theme, the stampsheet will be novel and distinctive, with the adoption of special printing which has the ability to show the effect of an interactive game! By placing and slightly moving the enclosed screener, one can see surprising pattern and words on the stamp.

The “Hong Kong Museums Collection” will be issued on 16th May  by the Hong Kong Post which would include a set of special stamps which would portray six prized artworks on Chinese Calligraphy and Paintings created in 1911 or earlier.

Starting from May 14th – 17th, the theme is “Youth Philately”.

I think it’s going to be an interesting event for stamp enthusiasts across the world.If you find yourself interested, well, welcome to a wonderful new hobby!



Betty

Reese Lanter asked:


Chinese symbols are one of the most popular tattoo designs. You should consider consulting a Chinese linguist or a Chinese artist before deciding on a particular Chinese symbol tattoo, though.

Why You Want One

Before asking an expert about a particular symbol, ask yourself why you want it first. Of course, they obviously look cool but you need to be certain that it is what you want. You need to have the right reasons to be able to appreciate your tattoo.

- In most cases, a person with Chinese heritage may want a Chinese symbol tattoo because it links them to that part of them that is Chinese. A Chinese inspired tattoo is a way of connecting to your roots.

- The masterful calligraphy of a real Chinese characters is also another reason why people want to have such designs. Tattoos of Chinese characters actually look elegant, exotic, artistic and clean.

- Another reason is also the influence of the culture. Some people also want to have Chinese symbol tattoos simply because of the link of Chinese symbols to mythology, mystery and even martial arts pop culture. In a deeper level, Chinese characters have also been associated with ancient wisdom and values.

Why You Need an Expert

It is usually a good idea to get paid expert service to come up with a customized Chinese symbol tattoo that is just for you. Here are some valid reasons why you need an expert:

- The system of writing is complicated and usually very intricate. Although Chinese people usually need to master only about 3,000-5,000 characters, there are more than 70,000-80,000 Chinese characters in existence. There is a therefore a high chance that you could get the wrong symbol on your skin. Furthermore, the English language has a lot of words that are the same but may have different meanings and connotations. Translating multiple meaning words in Chinese could get tricky because there are many possible characters that could have different definitions for a single English word.

- Chinese calligraphy comes in many styles. You can choose a Chinese symbol tattoo in cursive, classic, old style and many more. This does not mean though that a tattoo artist is free to put his own flair on a Chinese symbol tattoo. Chinese calligraphy may have many styles but it is an exact art. Putting artistic flair could ruin a Chinese symbol tattoo or its meaning could change.

- It’s easy for you to apply a symbol incorrectly if you don’t know much about the symbol that’s why an expert is important. Because you and your tattoo artist are not familiar with Chinese, you could unintentionally put a symbol backward or upside down. You might also miss some strokes. This could change the meaning of your symbol or make it completely meaningless.

- You could ask friends, artists and online dictionaries to translate for you. Sometimes though, translations could be wrong. This is especially true if you have a friend who is not so well versed in the nuances of either the English or Chinese languages. An expert would be careful of double meanings.



Phyllis