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敵を知り己を知る is the Japanese version of “know your enemy, know yourself.”
There is a longer version of this proverb that adds, “...and you can win 100 battles.”
Note: Because this selection contains some special Japanese Hiragana characters, it should be written by a Japanese calligrapher.
This proverb is from Sun Tzu's (Sunzi's) Art of War.
It means that if you know and understand the enemy, you also know yourself. Four secondary characters come after this in the Art of War (not included here) which suggests you cannot lose a battle when you follow this philosophy.
In a very literal and somewhat-boring way, this can also be translated as “Estimate correctly one's strength as well as that of one's opponent.”
正勝吾勝 is a proverb that is often translated as “True victory is victory over oneself.”
However, literally, Kanji by Kanji, means “True victory [is] my/self victory.”
My Japanese friends rate this very highly for a wall scroll.
See Also: Know Thy Enemy Know Thyself
This in-stock artwork might be what you are looking for, and ships right away...
Gallery Price: $60.00
Your Price: $36.88
Gallery Price: $60.00
Your Price: $36.88
Gallery Price: $60.00
Your Price: $36.88
The following table may be helpful for those studying Chinese or Japanese...
| Title | Characters | Romaji (Romanized Japanese) | Various forms of Romanized Chinese | |
| Know Thy Enemy, Know Thyself | 敵を知り己を知る | te ki o shi ri o no re o shi ru tekioshirionoreoshiru | ||
| Know Thy Enemy, Know Thyself | 知彼知己 | zhí bǐ zhí jī zhi2 bi3 zhi2 ji1 zhi bi zhi ji zhibizhiji | chih pi chih chi chihpichihchi |
|
| True Victory is Victory Over Oneself | 正勝吾勝 正胜吾胜 | masa katsu a gatsu masakatsuagatsu | ||
| 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. | ||||
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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.
Check out my lists of Japanese Kanji Calligraphy Wall Scrolls and Old Korean Hanja Calligraphy Wall Scrolls.
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