From reader "Shay S.":
"Dear Tian, the attached photo is that of a the characters on the front of a shirt I bought at Walmart some years ago. I can't say I've worn it much, since it was soon after I really thought about the fact that it could say anything. Living in a city with a tiny Asian population, I have never had the event to find out what it means. I hope the picture is clear enough to be read."
I really have no idea what the second character supposed to be. In order to make the phrase to be somewhat meaningful, I thought it might be 叭. Therefore the phrase would be something like "respect the weak authority".
This phrase also reminded me of Cartman from South Park yelling about "respect my authority" and recently my friend Eric got beaten up by two off-duty police officers in Mesa, Arizona.
淡 = weak, watery; insipid, tasteless
叭 = denote a sound or sharp noise
整 = orderly, neat, tidy; whole
儼 = grave, respectful, majestic
The second character is probably a variant of 以, written as (口人)--not that uncommon a form, really. 淡 could mean 淡雅, simple elegance, so that the whole phrase would mean something like "Order through simple elegance".
ReplyDelete--zhwj