jie yi
Book Review: Chinese Knotting by Lydia Chen
Submitted by Carol on Fri, 2010.02.05, 05:19
In print in one form or another pretty much continuously since 1981, this book is responsible for reviving the art of Chinese knotting and likely many cascade effects.
First was the original (Traditional) Chinese edition published in Taiwan (the cover of the original Chinese edition is identical in illustration to the English edition pictured at left but for the title rendered in Chinese text):
中國結
Author: 陳夏生 (Chen Hsia-Sheng, chén xià shēng)
ISBN: ??
Publisher: ECHO Publishing Company; 1 edition (January, 1981)
Dimensions: 11.1 x 8.7 inches
Soon followed by an English edition also published in Taiwan and distributed by Tuttle (see left):
Chinese Knotting
Author: Lydia Chen
ISBN: 0-8048-1389-2
Hardcover: 116 pages
Publisher: ECHO Publishing Company; 1 English edition (January, 1982)
Dimensions: 11.1 x 8.7 inches
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Translating Lydia Chen's Chinese Knotting Book One Knot List
Submitted by Carol on Tue, 2010.01.12, 00:44The easiest way for me to enter Chinese text is by typing English text and getting something to translate it for me. Generally speaking this does 60% of the job. Then there are the characters that are more difficult to translate, so I need to enter them directly. For this task I like to write the characters into a system that does Chinese handwriting recognition. For this job I used the free iTranslate iPhone app and the nciku dictionary. I used the iTranslate app, mostly because I was out, but it had the added advantage of quickly swapping the Chinese and English back and forth from the translate/translated windows for refinement of the desired characters. Also, unlike the other translation apps on my phone, iTranslate allowed me to get the data out (via email in this case). Apparently iTranslate is "powered by Google" and indeed once I got home I also used Google Translate with largely the same results although there is no handwriting recognition involved there.
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Knots vs Fancy Knots
Submitted by Carol on Wed, 2009.08.12, 02:00"한국의" translates as "South Korea" and "국의" translates as "country". I should not have been surprised that none of the individual parts translated as "south" which is apparently "남쪽". 8)
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The Complete Art of Chinese Knotting TV show
Submitted by Carol on Fri, 2009.08.07, 04:30It should not surprise you that there is a Chinese knotting television show in China (I could be wrong, these could be an instructional DVD set or a web series. Does it matter?) and someone has digitized clips for a youTube-ish website, Videopedia World.
Here's the link to the "channel": 中国结艺大全
The show is called 中国结艺大全.
Chinese knot (simplified): 中国结
art: 艺
big: 大
full/complete/entire: 全
these characters together: 大全 Google translates as "Guinness" which I find very unhelpful.
In any case, I'm calling it as "The Complete Art of Chinese Knotting".
The production values are very good here, and the host speaks wonderfully clear Mandarin.
The uploaded segments are half an hour (more or less) and cover a range of related knots and projects.
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Chinese knotting videos: int301
Submitted by Carol on Fri, 2009.08.07, 03:10I've discovered the youTube channel of a 60 year old person (int301) in Taiwan which consists entirely of Chinese knotting instructions. The videos are silent, so the only language issue is the titles of the videos themselves. That's where I can help a bit. 8) The following translations are not formal with canonical knot names, they're just off the cuff notes I took for myself when I was looking at the videos
Looking at the full title of a video, the first one looks like this:
五福結 影片 中國結一線生機 提供
This part is duplicated, more or less in the title of almost all of the videos: 中國結一線生機 提供
Chinese Knot: 中國結
This part, I believe, means "video" more or less. Perhaps "instructional video", but I have put no effort into an actual translation: 一線生機 提供
五福結 interlocked double coin medallion
雙錢結 double coin
五股六花 circular mat (five:五, unit/ply/portion/section:股, six:六, flower:花)
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Kyoto Talk 003: Jie Yi - Chinese Knotting
Submitted by Carol on Wed, 2009.03.25, 02:10Notes: As with so many things to do with the history, development and culture of China, Korea and Japan, the situation is not well defined and each has influenced the other. That being said, it is generally agreed by experts in each nation that decorative knotting traditions probably began in China.
Archaeological records derived from bronzes, statues, carvings, paintings, and (in one important case) clay moulds (205BCE) show that decorative knotting was definitely a thriving and noteworthy craft by 475 BCE. The art developed during the Tang (618 - 709) and Song (960 - 1279) dynasties and flowered during the Ming (1368 - 1644) and Qing (1644 - 1911) dynasties.
Text: China, Korea and Japan each has a rich tradition in decorative knotting.
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Link Dump 2009.01.04
Submitted by Carol on Mon, 2009.01.05, 00:54Pictures
Some wacky artisan (interior design firm??) from the Netherlands is taking spongy looking "cords" and knitting them, they also tie really big knots... just follow the link and look! 8) [via]
http://baukeknottnerus.nl/
Some knotted wallhangings from a cultural website.
http://traditions.cultural-china.com/en/16T1961T4661.html
From the same site comes another set of pictures (note, they translated the button knot as the buckle knot. That confused me for a while...)
http://traditions.cultural-china.com/en/15Traditions335.html
Interesting jewelry. Some knotted, some just evoking knots.
http://cruststation.wordpress.com/2008/12/29/knotted/
Picture of a sizable mystic knot accompanies a blog with numerous links to knotting how-to videos.
http://salamanderart.wordpress.com/2008/12/28/chinese-knot-tying/
Things to see and do
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