I know what you mean, the poseur factor being pretty strong in America, but consider that it's a good outdoor hat for artists, coming as it does from Basque shepherds, not only for warmth but because you can pull the edge in any direction to shade the eyes. So it's good for working under indoor lighting as well.
This all gets more important as you get older and your eyes are more burnt out by contrast. The main problems with berets are the assumptions people make about you if you wear one, but when you get old enough you stop caring about that and start wearing whatever works best.
Anyway, this is a fantastic video, and a very classy way to bring an Apple store into the world. I wonder if it's a product of the new head of retail.
Edit: Checking Wikipedia, found this: "In the later part of the twentieth century, the beret was adopted by the Chinese both as a fashion statement and for its political undertones." I did not know that.
The beret is a bit Picasso-ish if you ask me. Yes, the Chinese know who Picasso was.
i think your comparison between traditional chinese characters vs simplified one is a bit off. out of almost 70k-80k of total chinese characters, only about 3000 of them are in simplified form while the rest are the same between "simplified set" and traditional set. cross-recognition of the characters are very easy. further more, there are various forms of character sets across east asian countries, such as japan or korea where the same character can be written differently. just like english vs french or other roman languages, though you might not know another languages, you still might be able to guess some of words by looking at the form/shape of a given chinese character. are there any special cases where the difference is so much that no one can even guess? it might, but it would be in tiny small sets.
There are 5,000 characters in most common use (that's the number given for being able to read a newspaper), and about 1/3 of them have been simplified. A friend of mine is 70 years old, native-born Chinese, and she can't recognize individual words in simplified characters very easily at all. She can figure out more in reading a text, as a lot of the characters haven't changed, so she can guess more accurately. Older people who still live in China have a much better likelihood of recognizing simplified characters, since they are the norm in modern China, though many business signs are still written in traditional characters.
I know a few Chinese calligraphers (in America), and they willl only use traditional characters, since writing the simplified ones changes the whole feeling. They feel the movement of the brush, the dynamics of the character, and their feeling inside is not the same when writing simplifed forms.
By the way, the word for "love" traditionally has the "heart" character in the middle of it, but the simplified form does not - they took the heart out of love.
The older generations of Chinese people speak about the "emotion" of beautifully written strokes of Traditional characters (Wang speaks of the "energy of the lines"). This emotion is largely absent with the current Simplified characters. Ironically, anyone from China born after 1960 or so cannot completely read what he wrote.
I've visited this city. Stunning, just as seen in the video. The pagoda at the top of the hill (seen in the video around 0:36) is gigantic when you are up close.
Are you saying that he's using simplified characters? I can't decipher it because it's too cursive for me, so I can't tell, but I'd be surprised if he wasn't writing in traditional characters.
Are you saying that he's using simplified characters? I can't decipher it because it's too cursive for me, so I can't tell, but I'd be surprised if he wasn't writing in traditional characters.
I don't know for sure, but I would bet that he's writing in traditional, given his age.
Quote:
Originally Posted by elroth
I know a few Chinese calligraphers (in America), and they willl only use traditional characters, since writing the simplified ones changes the whole feeling. They feel the movement of the brush, the dynamics of the character, and their feeling inside is not the same when writing simplifed forms.
By the way, the word for "love" traditionally has the "heart" character in the middle of it, but the simplified form does not - they took the heart out of love.
People I know in Taiwan and Macau (40+ to 70+ years old) definitely speak of the emotion of well-written free-hand traditional characters. Simplified doesn't do it for them. Not learning Chinese natively, I do not comprehend it.
I know the word for "love" (ai) but not the strokes. I just looked it up, and you are right! I see the character for "heart" (xin) in the traditional character but not the simplified.
Does the featured artist suggest a canny step by Apple to integrate into the local market, or is it an indicator of a possible upcoming iPad stylus/brush product announcement? ????
Comments
Except for that béret...I get it but come on.
You get it?
What the hell does that mean?
I know what you mean, the poseur factor being pretty strong in America, but consider that it's a good outdoor hat for artists, coming as it does from Basque shepherds, not only for warmth but because you can pull the edge in any direction to shade the eyes. So it's good for working under indoor lighting as well.
This all gets more important as you get older and your eyes are more burnt out by contrast. The main problems with berets are the assumptions people make about you if you wear one, but when you get old enough you stop caring about that and start wearing whatever works best.
Anyway, this is a fantastic video, and a very classy way to bring an Apple store into the world. I wonder if it's a product of the new head of retail.
Edit: Checking Wikipedia, found this: "In the later part of the twentieth century, the beret was adopted by the Chinese both as a fashion statement and for its political undertones." I did not know that.
The beret is a bit Picasso-ish if you ask me. Yes, the Chinese know who Picasso was.
i think your comparison between traditional chinese characters vs simplified one is a bit off. out of almost 70k-80k of total chinese characters, only about 3000 of them are in simplified form while the rest are the same between "simplified set" and traditional set. cross-recognition of the characters are very easy. further more, there are various forms of character sets across east asian countries, such as japan or korea where the same character can be written differently. just like english vs french or other roman languages, though you might not know another languages, you still might be able to guess some of words by looking at the form/shape of a given chinese character. are there any special cases where the difference is so much that no one can even guess? it might, but it would be in tiny small sets.
There are 5,000 characters in most common use (that's the number given for being able to read a newspaper), and about 1/3 of them have been simplified. A friend of mine is 70 years old, native-born Chinese, and she can't recognize individual words in simplified characters very easily at all. She can figure out more in reading a text, as a lot of the characters haven't changed, so she can guess more accurately. Older people who still live in China have a much better likelihood of recognizing simplified characters, since they are the norm in modern China, though many business signs are still written in traditional characters.
I know a few Chinese calligraphers (in America), and they willl only use traditional characters, since writing the simplified ones changes the whole feeling. They feel the movement of the brush, the dynamics of the character, and their feeling inside is not the same when writing simplifed forms.
By the way, the word for "love" traditionally has the "heart" character in the middle of it, but the simplified form does not - they took the heart out of love.
The older generations of Chinese people speak about the "emotion" of beautifully written strokes of Traditional characters (Wang speaks of the "energy of the lines"). This emotion is largely absent with the current Simplified characters. Ironically, anyone from China born after 1960 or so cannot completely read what he wrote.
I've visited this city. Stunning, just as seen in the video. The pagoda at the top of the hill (seen in the video around 0:36) is gigantic when you are up close.
Are you saying that he's using simplified characters? I can't decipher it because it's too cursive for me, so I can't tell, but I'd be surprised if he wasn't writing in traditional characters.
Are you saying that he's using simplified characters? I can't decipher it because it's too cursive for me, so I can't tell, but I'd be surprised if he wasn't writing in traditional characters.
I don't know for sure, but I would bet that he's writing in traditional, given his age.
I know a few Chinese calligraphers (in America), and they willl only use traditional characters, since writing the simplified ones changes the whole feeling. They feel the movement of the brush, the dynamics of the character, and their feeling inside is not the same when writing simplifed forms.
By the way, the word for "love" traditionally has the "heart" character in the middle of it, but the simplified form does not - they took the heart out of love.
People I know in Taiwan and Macau (40+ to 70+ years old) definitely speak of the emotion of well-written free-hand traditional characters. Simplified doesn't do it for them. Not learning Chinese natively, I do not comprehend it.
I know the word for "love" (ai) but not the strokes. I just looked it up, and you are right! I see the character for "heart" (xin) in the traditional character but not the simplified.