Chinese Characters (Can someone translate?)

[Soulsphere]

This probably isn't the best place to ask, but is there someone here who can read Chinese? I've heard a partial translation, but I'd like a full understanding of what these characters mean. Aparently it's a older dialect, if that helps any.



http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v4...Characters.jpg

[demagogue]

Give me a second to work it out. (I know Japanese, only a smattering of Chinese, but there is enough overlap in characters to get an idea of what's going on. I thought you might appreciate a possibly off-base but not-a-wild-guess answer to none at all.)

(Here it is in more contemporary text: [八卦水神減兇災],[天星火官除喜害])

Edit. Ok, Babelfish gives the literal translation as: Eight diagram Water God reduces ominous disaster, sky star official eliminates happy evil.

A little amateurish tweaking and we get: "The 8-Diagram Dragon-king [literally, Water-Deva] reduces ominous disaster; [This] zodiac-star [lit. Official Star; i.e., zodiac-sign] eliminates evil." (...not sure about that "happy"?? This may not be very accurate. Native Chinese speakers feel free to correct. But you get the gist.)

It's basically (so far as I can tell) a Zodiac tiding, telling us that the dragon (or year of the dragon, the specific year in the 12 year cycle that includes 1976, 1988, 2000, etc) will help get rid of evil/disaster for us, or people born that year. It's a lucky sign. More literally, it's referring to the 8-diagram (a Buddhist "map" of spiritual states), specifically to the 坎 part (I think), which represents water, the chi symbol ":l:", north, etc, the "lucky" one. When they then add "star" along with "water god" to that, that should be the Zodiac dragon (which is the "water god"). I assume it's all related. In any event, it's telling us that it (whatever "it" is) will get rid of evil for us. Sorry, I don't really know Chinese astrology (or the customs surrounding it) any further than the very basics.

I imagine you'd hang this up as a charm or banner to invoke or celebrate the luck of the dragon, or something like that.

[Soulsphere]

Thank you very much for the reply, and I appreciate the time you took to get this information for me. It's almost a little creepy though, since I was born in 1976.

I scaned those in from a shirt a bought a few years back.

I couldn't help laughing when I saw "eliminates happy evil." Happy evil, huh? Heheh.

If anyone else can shed more light on this, I'd appreciate it. Hmm, though I do know of a couple of people who might be able to help out in this regard.

[demagogue]

It's almost a little creepy though, since I was born in 1976.

Me, too.

[borgdrone89]

dooitashimashte!

[^ilovebioshock!]

it says "If you ask people what this says you are a duche bag"