# Pirates/World's End question—Writing on Sao Feng's flag?

**URL:** <https://boards.straightdope.com/t/pirates-worlds-end-question-writing-on-sao-fengs-flag/407212>\
**Category:** Cafe Society\
**Created:** [June 8, 2007, 2:11am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/pirates-worlds-end-question-writing-on-sao-fengs-flag/407212 "2007-06-08T02:11:40Z")\
**Posts on this page:** 4\
**Page:** 1

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**Author:** ![Ranchoth](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/ranchoth/32/1066_2.png) [@Ranchoth](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Ranchoth)\
**Post date:** [June 8, 2007, 2:11am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/pirates-worlds-end-question-writing-on-sao-fengs-flag/407212/1 "2007-06-08T02:11:40Z")

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Well, I finally got to see the new Pirates flick the other day, and I’ve got an odd linguistic question.

That is, what is written, in Chinese, on the pirate Sao Feng’s (Chow Yun Fat’s) flag?

I’ve been able to find a miserably small rendition of said flag [here,](http://pirates.wikia.com/wiki/Jolly_Roger_%28flag%29) as well as an equally tiny [screencap of an animated version of said flag](http://home.comcast.net/~Ranchoth/saofengflag.jpg) on the official website (it’s a flash page, so I couldn’t link to the animation itself). I even managed to spot it in a YouTube clip, but the resolution didn’t look good enough to be of any use.

All I’ve been able to figure out is that it _doesn’t_ say “Sao Feng” (my first hunch), if Wikipedia’s rendition of the character’s name is accurate.

Can anyone help me out?

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**Author:** ![Ranchoth](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/ranchoth/32/1066_2.png) [@Ranchoth](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Ranchoth)\
**Post date:** [June 11, 2007, 4:40am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/pirates-worlds-end-question-writing-on-sao-fengs-flag/407212/2 "2007-06-11T04:40:18Z")

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I think I’m allowed one bump—especially if I add some more data.

With the help of some magnifying software, some eyestrain, and a paint program, I’ve come up with an approximate drawing of the characters on the flag:

[Mystery flag writing](http://home.comcast.net/~Ranchoth/saofeng2.jpg).

I’m pretty confident about the character on the left, but I got a much poorer look at the one on the right from my visual sources. Hopefully, it’s close enough that it’s context to the other one will help, if nothing else.

So…any takers?

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**Author:** ![MasterOfDisaster](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/e19adc/32.png) [@MasterOfDisaster](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/MasterOfDisaster)\
**Post date:** [June 11, 2007, 5:44am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/pirates-worlds-end-question-writing-on-sao-fengs-flag/407212/3 "2007-06-11T05:44:32Z")

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It’s hard to see, but it appears to say 死杀. Read right to left (in Mandarin) it says shasi, which means ‘to kill’ … sounds about right for a pirate flag.

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**Author:** ![Ranchoth](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/ranchoth/32/1066_2.png) [@Ranchoth](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Ranchoth)\
**Post date:** [June 11, 2007, 7:09am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/pirates-worlds-end-question-writing-on-sao-fengs-flag/407212/4 "2007-06-11T07:09:30Z")

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_Awesome_…and even better, my crude rendition of tiny, blurry images actually did slightly resemble the actual writing sortof.

Good on ya’—thanks!