Serenity: Firefly Class 03-K64; Leaves on the Wind

See also:

• An1ning2 (Serenity: The Official Visual Companion)
• Jing4 (Serenity [movie])
• Jing3wei4; Ping2jing4 (Firefly Props and Merchandise)
• Ning2jing4 (Serenity [movie], Serenity [novelization], Serenity comic books, Serenity: The Official Visual Companion, Serenity DVD Official Site)
• Ping2jing4 (“Serenity, Part 1,” “The Train Job,” “Safe,” “The Message,” Firefly Press Kit)

Note:

• Japanese and gibberish: Mi no ue ni contains the Japanese hiragana characters の no and に ni. As for gibberish, when asked about his written Chinese characters on signs in issue #1, artist Georges Jeanty replied:

  I would love to tell you that I'm all about the detail and I took pains to look up some Japanese that would fit perfectly into this series so much so that only people who know who [sic] to read those symbols would get the inside joke of it all… but honestly I was looking at this Godzilla book that’s in Japanese and I just took symbols that I thought looked cool.

  (Georges Jeanty, post by Wenxina to the message-board thread Art giveaway and Q&A with Georges Jeanty for Serenity: Leaves on the Wind #1, SlayAlive Forum, January 29, 2014, post no. 1, question no. 13, http://slayalive.com/showthread.php/3608-Art-giveaway-and-Q-amp-A-with-Georges-Jeanty-for-Serenity-Leaves-on-the-Wind-1?p=116892; non-ellipsis trailing dots [actually four] in original)

Notes:

1. Japanese and gibberish: When asked about his written Chinese characters on signs in issue #1, artist Georges Jeanty replied:

   I would love to tell you that I'm all about the detail and I took pains to look up some Japanese that would fit perfectly into this series so much so that only people who know who [sic] to read those symbols would get the inside joke of it all… but honestly I was looking at this Godzilla book that’s in Japanese and I just took symbols that I thought looked cool.

   (Georges Jeanty, post by Wenxina to the message-board thread Art giveaway and Q&A with Georges Jeanty for Serenity: Leaves on the Wind #1, SlayAlive Forum, January 29, 2014, post no. 1, question no. 13, http://slayalive.com/showthread.php/3608-Art-giveaway-and-Q-amp-A-with-Georges-Jeanty-for-Serenity-Leaves-on-the-Wind-1?p=116892; non-ellipsis trailing dots [actually four] in original)

2. Chinese loanwords in Japanese: More than 1,500 years ago literate Japanese people wrote in Chinese before eventually translating Japanese words into the Chinese characters for Chinese words with similar meanings as well as borrowing many abstract and religious words from Chinese.

   The sign is near the Japanese sign Mi no ue ni, but if the characters on this sign are intended to represent Mandarin, though still seemingly gibberish, the niku, sui, and tensei in Mandarin would be, respectively:

   • rou4 肉 : meat, flesh
   • tui1 推: to push, to push ahead
   • tian1sheng1 [+NOUN] 天生 : innate [+NOUN], inbred (deep-seated) [+NOUN], a born / a natural (something) [+NOUN]; tian1: nature-given, heaven, God; sheng1: to be born
3. The Japanese word tensei 天生 is usually written 天性, sei: a temperament (of a person), a disposition (of a person).

Notes:

1. Japanese: When asked about his written Chinese characters on signs in issue #1, artist Georges Jeanty replied:

   I would love to tell you that I'm all about the detail and I took pains to look up some Japanese that would fit perfectly into this series so much so that only people who know who [sic] to read those symbols would get the inside joke of it all… but honestly I was looking at this Godzilla book that’s in Japanese and I just took symbols that I thought looked cool.

   (Georges Jeanty, post by Wenxina to the message-board thread Art giveaway and Q&A with Georges Jeanty for Serenity: Leaves on the Wind #1, SlayAlive Forum, January 29, 2014, post no. 1, question no. 13, http://slayalive.com/showthread.php/3608-Art-giveaway-and-Q-amp-A-with-Georges-Jeanty-for-Serenity-Leaves-on-the-Wind-1?p=116892; non-ellipsis trailing dots [actually four] in original)

2. Chinese loanwords in Japanese: More than 1,500 years ago literate Japanese people wrote in Chinese before eventually translating Japanese words into the Chinese characters for Chinese words with similar meanings as well as borrowing many abstract and religious words from Chinese.

   If the character is intended to represent Japanese (borrowed Chinese), the yu3 in Japanese would be u 宇 [except for use in some names, Chinese character doesn’t represent an independent word in Japanese] → uchuu 宇宙 the universe, space [borrowing from Chinese]; u [used only in compound words]: the universe, the heavens [borrowing from Chinese]; chuu [for this meaning, used only in compound words]: outer space, the heavens [borrowing from Chinese].

Notes:

1. Jayne’s T-shirt is in Japanese katakana characters. As for Godzilla, when artist Georges Jeanty was asked about his written Chinese characters on signs in issue #1, he replied:

   I was looking at this Godzilla book that’s in Japanese and I just took symbols that I thought looked cool.

   (Georges Jeanty, post by Wenxina to the message-board thread Art giveaway and Q&A with Georges Jeanty for Serenity: Leaves on the Wind #1, SlayAlive Forum, January 29, 2014, post no. 1, question no. 13, http://slayalive.com/showthread.php/3608-Art-giveaway-and-Q-amp-A-with-Georges-Jeanty-for-Serenity-Leaves-on-the-Wind-1?p=116892)

2. While the English pronunciation of Godzilla is “God-zil-la”, it should have come to English as “Go-dzil-la” (“Go-jil-la”) for gorilla and kujira.

Note:

• Also: tai4yang2: 太阳 (traditional: 太陽 ): the sun; tai4 [for this meaning, used only in compound words]: great, grand; yang2 [used only in compound words]: the sun

See also:

• Lan2ri4 (“The Message,” Firefly Official Site)
• Lan2ri4; Bing3 Qie3 Diu1; Zhong1 Wu1 Feng1 Zhu3 Wu1 Zha4 Tuo1 Wu1; Wan2 Zhi1 Jiu3; Chuan4 Pie3 Tuo1 Gai4 (Serenity Props and Merchandise)
• Lan2ri4; Dan1 Zhi1 Zhong1 Zhu3 Jiu3 Zhong1 Chuan4 Tuo1 Wei2 Tuo1 Gai4; Chuan4 Pie3 Tuo1 Gai4 (Serenity Props and Merchandise)
• Qing1ri4 (“Serenity, Part 1,” “Bushwhacked,” “Shindig,” “Ariel”)
• Qing1tian2 (Serenity: The Shepherd’s Tale)
• Shi4 ni3 de5; Ke3zhen1 ke3zhen1; Lan2ri4 (“The Message”)
• Zhe4 ben3 shu1 shi4 yi1 ge5 Qing1ri4 he2zuo4 chu1ban3 (Firefly: The Official Companion, Volume Two)

Note:

• Real terms:
  • dai4bu3 逮捕 : to make an arrest, to apprehend; dai4 [used only in compound words]: to arrest, to capture; bu3: to arrest, to catch
  • na2huo4 拿获 (traditional: 拿獲 ): to catch a criminal, to apprehend; na2: to capture, to seize; huo4: to capture, to catch
  • tong1ji1ling4 通缉令 (traditional: 通緝令 ): [headline of wanted posters] a public arrest-order (for a criminal at large); tong1ji1: to put someone on the wanted list, an arrest order (for a criminal at large) (tong1: to tell, to notify; ji1 [used only in compound words]: to arrest, to seize); ling4 [for this meaning, used only in compound words]: an official order, a decree