We have many options to create artwork with Courtesy characters on a wall scroll or portrait.
See also: Respect
In Chinese, old Korean Hanja, and old Japanese Kanji, 禮儀 means “etiquette” or “courtesy.”
You'll also find a Japanese entry on our website, which uses a modern/simplified first Kanji. The characters shown here compose the best choice if your audience is Chinese or Korean - but also acceptable if you want an ancient-style Japanese scroll (in modern Japanese, it has the same pronunciation, but is written 礼儀).
Note: This can also be translated as propriety, decorum, or formality.
In Japanese, 礼儀 means “manners,” “courtesy,” or “etiquette.”
This also clearly means etiquette in Chinese, though the first Japanese Kanji has been “modernized” and happens to be the same as the modern Simplified Chinese version. Therefore, this word will be understood by both Japanese and Chinese people but best if your audience is mostly Japanese (Chinese people would generally prefer the ancient Traditional Chinese version).
禮貌 is a Chinese and old Korean word that means courtesy or politeness.
Courtesy is being polite and having good manners. When you speak and act courteously, you give others a feeling of being valued and respected. Greet people pleasantly. Bring courtesy home. Your family needs it most of all. Courtesy helps life to go smoothly.
If you put the words "fēi cháng bù" in front of this, it is like adding "very much not." it’s a great insult in China, as nobody wants to be called "extremely discourteous" or "very much impolite."
The following table may be helpful for those studying Chinese or Japanese...
Title | Characters | Romaji (Romanized Japanese) | Various forms of Romanized Chinese | |
Courtesy Etiquette | 禮儀 礼仪 | lǐ yì / li3 yi4 / li yi / liyi | li i / lii | |
Courtesy Etiquette | 礼儀 / 禮儀 礼仪 | rei gi / reigi | lǐ yì / li3 yi4 / li yi / liyi | li i / lii |
Courtesy Politeness | 禮貌 礼貌 | lǐ mào / li3 mao4 / li mao / limao | ||
In some entries above you will see that characters have different versions above and below a line. In these cases, the characters above the line are Traditional Chinese, while the ones below are Simplified Chinese. |
All of our calligraphy wall scrolls are handmade.
When the calligrapher finishes creating your artwork, it is taken to my art mounting workshop in Beijing where a wall scroll is made by hand from a combination of silk, rice paper, and wood.
After we create your wall scroll, it takes at least two weeks for air mail delivery from Beijing to you.
Allow a few weeks for delivery. Rush service speeds it up by a week or two for $10!
When you select your calligraphy, you'll be taken to another page where you can choose various custom options.
The wall scroll that Sandy is holding in this picture is a "large size"
single-character wall scroll.
We also offer custom wall scrolls in small, medium, and an even-larger jumbo size.
Professional calligraphers are getting to be hard to find these days.
Instead of drawing characters by hand, the new generation in China merely type roman letters into their computer keyboards and pick the character that they want from a list that pops up.
There is some fear that true Chinese calligraphy may become a lost art in the coming years. Many art institutes in China are now promoting calligraphy programs in hopes of keeping this unique form
of art alive.
Even with the teachings of a top-ranked calligrapher in China, my calligraphy will never be good enough to sell. I will leave that to the experts.
The same calligrapher who gave me those lessons also attracted a crowd of thousands and a TV crew as he created characters over 6-feet high. He happens to be ranked as one of the top 100 calligraphers in all of China. He is also one of very few that would actually attempt such a feat.