# Chinese ideogram help needed **URL:** \ **Category:** Factual Questions\ **Created:** [March 22, 2010, 4:23pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/chinese-ideogram-help-needed/533352 "2010-03-22T16:23:53Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 14\ **Page:** 1
**Author:** ![Rocketeer](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/rocketeer/32/4437_2.png) [@Rocketeer](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Rocketeer)\ **Post date:** [March 22, 2010, 4:23pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/chinese-ideogram-help-needed/533352/1 "2010-03-22T16:23:53Z")
I’m building a model of a (fantasy) Chinese airship of about 1898, and I need a little help with markings. A friend has supplied me with a very useful little essay on Chinese ship naming conventions, and after looking it over I’ve decided to name my airship (which has nautical elements) either Haiying (Sea hawk) or Yangfeng (Ocean wind). What I’d like to do is print up a little decal with the ideograms to apply to the bow of my airship. So what are the ideograms for Haiying and Yangfeng? I’d prefer a jpeg or similar picture file, because it’d make printing the decal easier, but I can work with whatever. ---
**Author:** ![chromaticity](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/cc9497/32.png) [@chromaticity](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/chromaticity)\ **Post date:** [March 22, 2010, 4:54pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/chinese-ideogram-help-needed/533352/2 "2010-03-22T16:54:59Z")
Ill have a go at it. Although I dont know much Chinese, probably looking up using Japanese characters would give good results 😛 Hǎiyīng: [海鷹](http://images.google.com/imgres?imgurl=http://www.ms-plus.net/images_item/28000/28670.jpg&imgrefurl=http://www.ms-plus.com/search.asp%3Fid%3D28670&usg=__vwplmG1QZuANksKggNhajc2vcdk=&h=353&w=500&sz=37&hl=en&start=2&um=1&itbs=1&tbnid=RtsvxfaUCpuUEM:&tbnh=92&tbnw=130&prev=/images%3Fq%3D%25E6%25B5%25B7%25E9%25B7%25B9%26um%3D1%26hl%3Den%26safe%3Doff%26client%3Dfirefox-a%26sa%3DN%26tbo%3D1%26rls%3Dorg.mozilla:en-US:official%26ndsp%3D20%26tbs%3Disch:1) J(Kaiyo/Umitaka)：海鷹 Sea Hawk Xìfēng: 汐風 J(Shiokaze): 潮風 Sea Breeze ---
**Author:** ![Giles](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/giles/32/60_2.png) [@Giles](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Giles)\ **Post date:** [March 22, 2010, 5:06pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/chinese-ideogram-help-needed/533352/3 "2010-03-22T17:06:02Z")
This Chinese Wikipedia page: [http://zh.wikipedia.org/wiki/%E6%9C%80%E9%AB%98%E9%9B%BB%E5%BD%B1%E7%A5%A8%E6%88%BF%E6%94%B6%E5%85%A5%E5%88%97%E8%A1%A8](http://zh.wikipedia.org/wiki/%E6%9C%80%E9%AB%98%E9%9B%BB%E5%BD%B1%E7%A5%A8%E6%88%BF%E6%94%B6%E5%85%A5%E5%88%97%E8%A1%A8) (a list of highest grossing movies) contains this line: > [@](#): > > 1924 海鷹 - The Sea Hawk That is, the Chinese title of the 1924 movie “The Sea Hawk” is 海鷹, agreeing with **chromaticity** ’s suggestion ---
**Author:** ![chromaticity](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/cc9497/32.png) [@chromaticity](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/chromaticity)\ **Post date:** [March 22, 2010, 5:24pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/chinese-ideogram-help-needed/533352/4 "2010-03-22T17:24:34Z")
Interestingly, I’m getting a lot more hits for Kaiyo, since there was apparently a WW2 [carrier](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Japanese_aircraft_carrier_Kaiyo) of the same name. A [picture](http://item.rakuten.co.jp/otagai/110135/) of a model of the carrier. It might a good idea to install one of these [fonts](http://www.wazu.jp/gallery/Fonts_Japanese.html) to make a cleaner decal template. Japanese works for these characters. I can do it if you like, because I predict a boring day at work for me tomorrow. Also, it would be awesome to know what kind of model you are making and the scale! ---
**Author:** ![Rocketeer](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/rocketeer/32/4437_2.png) [@Rocketeer](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Rocketeer)\ **Post date:** [March 22, 2010, 6:46pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/chinese-ideogram-help-needed/533352/5 "2010-03-22T18:46:33Z")
Thanks for the help! I don’t quite understand which of your Sea Breezes is Chinese: 汐風 or 潮風 ? I’m reluctant to install any fonts–I can’t on my work computer, and my home computer is a Mac–and I don’t understand a lot of the subtleties about fonts on computers; but if you wanted to install one that looked like 1898, and send me the correct ideograms, that’d be wonderful. However, the final decal will be maybe half an inch long and a quarter-inch high, so any subtle refinements might be wasted. Here’s a link to a thread on another message board which gives a blow-by-blow account of the project in excruciating detail with lots of poorly-focused pictures 😉 . (I hope to finish it by Wonderfest, a big national fantasy model contest in May.) > **[A non-car project (new progress pics 21 March) | Coffin Corner 2](https://coffincorner.proboards.com/thread/12171)** > > This is what I've been working on lately--a Jules Verne-style aerial dreadnought conversion of a crummy battleship kit. The "visitor" is being bashed from a McDonald's toy. :D http://i19 ---
**Author:** ![chromaticity](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/cc9497/32.png) [@chromaticity](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/chromaticity)\ **Post date:** [March 22, 2010, 7:14pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/chinese-ideogram-help-needed/533352/6 "2010-03-22T19:14:24Z")
Ah, sorry. I guess 汐風 would be better. Ill make some png files for the characters using an old-timey font, later today. (After checking with a Chinese friend) Awesome pictures! Irving looks great. I cant even begin to imagine how much patience and effort goes into a project like that. ---
**Author:** ![Waffle\_Decider](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/w/77aa72/32.png) [@Waffle\_Decider](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Waffle_Decider)\ **Post date:** [March 22, 2010, 7:26pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/chinese-ideogram-help-needed/533352/7 "2010-03-22T19:26:19Z")
The characters for Yangfeng in Chinese are 洋風. You can get image files for the characters by pasting them into the generator at this site. The font they use is pretty crappy though… ---
**Author:** ![chromaticity](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/cc9497/32.png) [@chromaticity](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/chromaticity)\ **Post date:** [March 23, 2010, 2:02pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/chinese-ideogram-help-needed/533352/8 "2010-03-23T14:02:57Z")
Turns out I was partly wrong. As per my Chinese friend, the ones that make sense were: Hǎifēng 海風 -\> Ocean breeze Hǎiyīng: 海鷹 -\> Ocean Hawk I uploaded a document file with the above in some sample fonts [here](http://www.mediafire.com/?tmnmizmh14h). I thought of making image files out of them, but it seemed to be unnecessarily complex. ---
**Author:** ![HazelNutCoffee](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/h/ac91a4/32.png) [@HazelNutCoffee](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/HazelNutCoffee)\ **Post date:** [March 23, 2010, 3:00pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/chinese-ideogram-help-needed/533352/9 "2010-03-23T15:00:00Z")
> [@Waffle\_Decider](#): > > The characters for Yangfeng in Chinese are 洋風. Yes, this is correct. Yang means big ocean, while hai just means ocean or sea. At least in traditional Chinese. Haifeng sounds more natural than yangfeng though. ---
**Author:** ![Rocketeer](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/rocketeer/32/4437_2.png) [@Rocketeer](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Rocketeer)\ **Post date:** [March 23, 2010, 3:24pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/chinese-ideogram-help-needed/533352/10 "2010-03-23T15:24:49Z")
Thank you very much. I can’t get to **chromaticity** ’s site from here at work, but will look at it tonight. I appreciate all the effort you put into this; thanks again! ---
**Author:** ![chromaticity](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/cc9497/32.png) [@chromaticity](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/chromaticity)\ **Post date:** [March 23, 2010, 3:32pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/chinese-ideogram-help-needed/533352/11 "2010-03-23T15:32:39Z")
My pleasure! Do share the pictures of your model after it is done. Its gonna look awesome! ---
**Author:** ![Rocketeer](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/rocketeer/32/4437_2.png) [@Rocketeer](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Rocketeer)\ **Post date:** [March 24, 2010, 12:12am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/chinese-ideogram-help-needed/533352/12 "2010-03-24T00:12:14Z")
The .pdf you posted looks like just the ticket. Thanks again! ---
**Author:** ![cuberdon](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/45deac/32.png) [@cuberdon](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/cuberdon)\ **Post date:** [March 24, 2010, 2:56am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/chinese-ideogram-help-needed/533352/13 "2010-03-24T02:56:07Z")
Are there any differences between simplified and traditional versions of those characters? Because the OP’s timeframe is before simplification started in earnest. ---
**Author:** ![Koxinga](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/k/4af34b/32.png) [@Koxinga](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Koxinga)\ **Post date:** [March 24, 2010, 3:02am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/chinese-ideogram-help-needed/533352/14 "2010-03-24T03:02:49Z")
> [@HazelNutCoffee](#): > > Yes, this is correct. Yang means big ocean, while hai just means ocean or sea. At least in traditional Chinese. Depending on the context (not sure about ships) yang (洋) may have a connotation of “foreign” or “Western.”