We have many options to create artwork with the Chinese characters / Asian symbols / Japanese Kanji for Live For Today on a wall scroll or portrait.
If you want to create a cool Live For Today wall scroll, this is the place. Below you will find a few Asian symbols that express the idea of Live For Today.
活在今天 is not an eastern concept, so it does not translate into a phrase that seems natural on a wall scroll.
However, if this is your philosophy, the characters shown here do capture your idea of living for today or living in the moment. 活在今天 says “Live in today,” and they are grammatically correct in Chinese.
Note: This kind of makes sense in Korean Hanja but the grammar is Chinese, so it’s not that natural in Korean.
今を生きる is a Japanese phrase that can be translated as “live for the day,” “live for the moment,” “seize the day,” or “make the most of the present.”
You can think of this as the Japanese version of “Carpe Diem.”
Note: Because this selection contains some special Japanese Hiragana characters, it should be written by a Japanese calligrapher.
現世 is a very short way to write “live in the moment” or “live in the now” in Japanese.
This short word is open to interpretation. It's used in Japanese Buddhism to mean “the current epoch” or “the current age” (the current age is but a brief moment in the greater scope of existence). In that context, this is pronounced “utsushiyo” or “ustusiyo” in Japanese. Otherwise, it's pronounced “gensei” in Japanese.
Other translation possibilities include:
Note: This is also a word in Chinese and old Korean Hanja. While the meaning is more or less the same, this is not recommended for a wall scroll if your audience is Chinese or Korean. This selection is best if your audience is Japanese.
生而無悔 is how to say “live without regrets” in Mandarin Chinese.
Note: There is some debate about whether this makes sense in Japanese. It would be read, "nama ji mu ke," and be understood in Japanese. But, a Japanese person will probably think it’s Chinese (not Japanese).
See Also: Live for Today
人生悔い無し is how to say “live without regrets” in Japanese.
Note: Because this selection contains some special Japanese Hiragana characters, it should be written by a Japanese calligrapher.
See Also: Live for Today
無悔 is how to say “no regrets” in Mandarin Chinese.
This also makes sense in Japanese, though not the most common way to express “no regrets” in Japanese.
See Also: Live for Today
The following table may be helpful for those studying Chinese or Japanese...
Title | Characters | Romaji (Romanized Japanese) | Various forms of Romanized Chinese | |
Live For The Day | 活在今天 | huó zài jīn tiān huo2 zai4 jin1 tian1 huo zai jin tian huozaijintian | huo tsai chin t`ien huotsaichintien huo tsai chin tien |
|
Carpe Diem Seize the Day | 把握今日 | bǎ wò jīn rì ba3 wo4 jin1 ri4 ba wo jin ri bawojinri | pa wo chin jih pawochinjih |
|
Live For The Day Seize The Day | 今を生きる | ima wo i ki ru imawoikiru | ||
Live In The Moment Live In The Now | 現世 现世 | gen sei / gensei | xiàn shì / xian4 shi4 / xian shi / xianshi | hsien shih / hsienshih |
Live Without Regret | 生而無悔 生而无悔 | shēng ér wú huǐ sheng1 er2 wu2 hui3 sheng er wu hui shengerwuhui | sheng erh wu hui shengerhwuhui |
|
Live Without Regret | 人生悔い無し | jinsei kui nashi jinseikuinashi | ||
No Regrets | 無悔 无悔 | mu ke / muke | wú huǐ / wu2 hui3 / wu hui / wuhui | |
No Regrets | 後悔無し | kou kai na shi koukainashi ko kai na shi | ||
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.