# 九.寅寅巳午十.



## Chazzwozzer

Hi,

Unfortunately, I'm not able to recognize any character of the Asiatic languages, yet I still feel this writing belongs to Japanese. Good shoot, I hope?

If it's Japanese, can you please tell me what it means in English?

Cheers,
Ekin


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## Whodunit

Well I'm not sure whether that's Japanese. At least, they are all Chinese characters and don't make much sense to me. They are some numbers (and Zodiac signs?):

九 - nine
寅 - 3am till 5am, January
寅 - same as above
巳 - 9am till 11am, April
牛 - cow (don't ask me what this has to do with all this here)
十 - ten

I hope this helps a bit (although I doubt it). Let's see what the others have to say.


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## Flaminius

The sticker reads;
九.寅寅巳*午*十.
午 is the horse in zodiac signs.  In fact 寅 (tiger) and 巳 (snake) are also zodiac signs.

These are Chinese characters but the pattern, if any, is not Japanese.  I move this thread to OL, hoping our Chinese-speaking foreros can help you.


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## palomnik

Seeing as this is apparently painted on the side of a car, I'm strongly tempted to assume that this is another one of the idiocies of the type that you see in tattoos sometimes, and it may very well have no meaning outside of the fancy of the owner.

Can you provide any further background on the source of the writing?


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## Spectre scolaire

As _Flaminius_ has already corrected in read, it reads 午, wu3 - not 牛, niu2 (as written by _Whodunit_) 

午 is “the seventh of the twelve Earthly Branches” and functions as a Chinese surname.

寅 yin2 is “the third of the twelve Earthly Branches” and symbolizes 'integrity and passion'. 寅寅 can be a Chinese female given name.

寅寅 happens to be placed on the opening of the fuel tank.

I leave the rest of the riddle to others.


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## coconutpalm

I have no idea what these six character means...


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## coconutpalm

daoxunchang said:


> *九: maybe the place of the person in the line of all his siblings?*


 
further note:
These "siblings" are not necessarily your brothers and sisters, but more likely, they include your cousins on your father's male side, who in Chinese traditional definition, are also your brothers and sisters.
e.g. I'm the third one in my family. My father has four brothers, the five of them have altogether ten children, so I'm the seventh in my extended family.


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## daoxunchang

寅(年)寅(月)巳(日)午(时)---虎年虎月蛇日下午1点到3点出生born at from 1 o'clock to 3 o'clock in the afternoon on a "snake day" in a "tiger month" in a "tiger year"
十: the place of the person in the line of his siblings

Then there is still 九, the character before the full stop, left.......


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## Chazzwozzer

Wow, interesting. Thank you guys!



palomnik said:


> Can you provide any further background on the source of the writing?


It's the car I see on the street every day while going back home. That's all, I guess.


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## Whodunit

daoxunchang said:


> Then there is still 九, the character before the full stop, left.......


 
Who knows that it's really a full stop? It could be something else, whatever ...

Couldn't 九 mean that the person is born on the 9th of the tiger month?


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## daoxunchang

hehe, it's not very likely. I've never seen or heard of specifically picking the day when he was born out. It does not make sense.


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## Kwunlam

daoxunchang said:


> 寅(年)寅(月)巳(日)午(时)---虎年虎月蛇日下午1点到3点出生born at from 1 o'clock to 3 o'clock in the afternoon on a "snake day" in a "tiger month" in a "tiger year"
> 十: the place of the person in the line of his siblings
> 
> Then there is still 九, the character before the full stop, left.......


 
Yes, this is called 時辰八字 (eight-words of the hours). It is used for many purposes: matching couples (yes, if their hours does not match, then they would not probably marry, or something not harminious would happen), buying flats, planning, carrying out constructions, travelling etc... even cursing. 

In the past, this is really a "secret code". People do not disclose this very private information to others easily.


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## Kwunlam

Please read the articles "Heavenly Stems" (天干) and "Earthly Branches " (地支) in Wikipedia for more information. 

十天干:
甲、乙、丙、丁、戊、己、庚、辛、壬、癸。 
十二地支:
子、丑、寅、卯、辰、巳、午、未、申、酉、戌、亥。

Mixing together will render 60 stems and branches:
六十干支:
*甲*子　乙丑　丙寅　丁卯　戊辰　己巳　庚午　辛未　壬申　癸酉　*甲*戌　乙亥
丙子　丁丑.... 
and so on... 


Basically these are two sets of number-words for the purposes of fortune telling.  It is related to Yin-Yang, and the Five Metals.


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## samanthalee

Kwunlam said:


> Basically these are two sets of number-words for the purposes of fortune telling. It is related to Yin-Yang, and the Five Metals.


We only see the Earthly branch here...so it is not "eight-words of the hours", that needs both the Heavenly branch and Earthly branch. It is probably just in the fashion of meaningless "exotic tattoos".


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## Kwunlam

samanthalee said:


> We only see the Earthly branch here...so it is not "eight-words of the hours", that needs both the Heavenly branch and Earthly branch. It is probably just in the fashion of meaningless "exotic tattoos".


 
Oh, thank you for pointing out my mistake !  

I focused on the Calender itself (which concerns everybody) instead of individuals' birthdays and birth-hours.  

As WIKI points out, we still use 天干 in some nomenclatures in some cases only.  For example, 甲等、乙等、丙等、丁等、戊等 to refer to Grades in examinations.   But we don't generally treat them as cardinal numbers.


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