What is the character on a standard pack of bamboo chopsticks? It sort of looks like an HP, but it’s usually written so stylized that I have no hope of being able to look it up. If I could get the Pinyin, that would help a lot!
Theres a picture at http://www.ipcsupplies.com/images/BambooChopsticks.jpg
Isn’t Chinese calligraphy is a pain to decipher?
Disclaimer: I don’t read Chinese. I can count from 1-10, but that doesn’t really…count (haha, I killz me).
Here’s my (potentionally very wrong) take:
My guess is that the “HP” is a stylized version of this character:
卯 = mǎo or mao3 in Pinyin.
I put together 卯 with the second character, 箸, (zhù or zhu4) and got this webpage:
Japanese Chopsticks
http://shinsaibashi.tokyu-hands.co.jp/webcheck/hands051222/chop.html
Scroll to the bottom and click on the third picture from the bottom, first column:
“未生卯箸”
http://shinsaibashi.tokyu-hands.co.jp/webcheck/hands051222/pop-up/chop/img/h31.jpg
My guess is that 卯箸 means chopsticks. The 卯 may mean “single-use” or “disposable”.
Please, any native Chinese readers/writers are more than welcome to fight my ignorance on the subject. I just didn’t want Greg to feel ignored. 
Sorry, this is just too easy;
HEWLETT PACKARD
You’re right, you’re wrong.
Firstly, this is Japanese, not Chinese. Secondly, “卯” does not mean “disposable” it is a zodiac sign, and a time of the day in the old zodiac-based system. It means “hare”.
However, that’s not what’s written on the chopstick, rather it’s this character:
御
It written in cursive style, or sousho (草書 ), which is why it’s a bit hard to recognise if you’re not familiar with this calligraphic style.
In this context, it’s read “o”. Together with the second character, 箸, it reads: “o-hashi”. This just means “chopsticks”.
The exact meaning of “o” is very hard to convey and its uses are many. In most contexts, it precedes hashi by default. Other words that are usually or always preceded by “o” include sushi, kane (money), yu (hot water), cha (tea), shio (salt), mizu (water). As you can see, many of those are related to food. You could say “o” denotes a certain familiarity towards the object, but mostly it’s just something people tack onto certain words.
I know a little Japanese, and I’ve seen that “o” characterised as an honorific, which is applied especially to foods. So it conveys a level of respect to the noun next to it, just as people-honorifics like “san”, “chan” and “sama” do. But, because it’s conveying a dimension of language that’s missing in English, it’s impossible to translate. So “mizu” and “o-mizu” are both “water”, just as “Suzuki-san”, “Suzuki-chan” and “Suzuki-sama” are all “Ms Suzuki” in English (assuming that Suzuki is a woman).
Cool, o hashi! So the two characters are Unicode 5fa1 and 7bb8, right? Unicode 7bb8 by itself is chopsticks in Chinese (zhu4), but only Japanese prepends U5fa1?
On a tangent, there’s a sushi place I go to called O Nami. I guess it’s the same “O”, but what does “nami” mean?
Not the same “O”. In this case, it’s 大波, which is Large Wave. Incidently, the “O” is long “Oonami” (pronounced the same, but held for twice the length.)
Except I can’t think of a time you would say “Suzuki-chan.” “Keiko-chan” is used but the diminuative for girls is not used, as a rule, with last names.
Nami means “wave” it’s written: 波
O-nami, however, is not 御波 but rather: 男波 – “man wave”. This refers to tall and strong waves, as opposed to low and calm “woman waves”: 女波 (me-nami).
“O” can act as an honorific. “Baggage” is nimotsu, however, a hotel employee would say o-nimotsu to refer to a guest’s suitcase.
When you say o-hashi, you are not being polite to the owner as in the example above. Rather, you’re making a common word and object more refined. This is not to be confused with the “honorific” use of the particule. I must stress, though, that it’s something you put in front of certain words automatically.
I have been to that store It’s near Shibuya and has arts and crafts and home DIY type supplies. It’s a great store.
Actually, it’s a chain. The link is to their Shinsaibashi store, which is in Osaka. And yes, it is a great store.
I asked several natives at work here about this take, but they felt that it would be more likely to be 大波, as above.
男波 is not a common word (2.3 million hits on google for 大波 vs. 968 hits for 男波. Looking up 大波 寿司 gets 32,300 hits vs. 314 hits for 男波 寿司 and I found a couple of sushi places which were named 大波, including one in Israel. 大波 is also often used an the name of a set course.
I’m impressed with your vocabulary. Our 55-year-old logistics manager said he’s never used that word in his life, although he could understand it when he read it.
And this is used much more by women, especially the ojousama or okusama types. I’d guess that 99% of women would use ohashi and omizu while a significently less percentage of men do (unless they are on a date).
For sure, that’s probably it, but with this discussion, I had short-o on my mind. I didn’t even read it as oo-nami.
Yes, beware of romaji.
you mean
