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Subject:國長春社康
Posted By: Super Fri, Dec 20, 2019
Thanks, Larry.
That would mean the five characters on your figurine, from right to left would be:
國長春社康
it would also mean with this one extra character, it will totally alter the original translation with only four characters.
First, the third and four character together form a compound name:
春社
https://www.wikiwand.com/zh-cn/春社
which is a very ancient traditional Chinese folk holiday. Originated as early as Shang and Western Zhou dynasty, it was a festival when men and women would get together and had fun (drinking, making love etc.....)
春 - means Spring, that is why this holiday is around Spring, on around the western calendar March 21st.
社 - means society or community.
Later this 春社 holiday became a day when people in a community will get together and celebrate,eating good food and drinking wine together, worship and made sacrifice to their local gods, visited their ancestors' graves, etc.
The purpose was to give thanks to their Gods and ancestors for good harvests and good fortunes, and asked them for more good fortune in the future. It also provided a great opportunity for everybody in the community to get together and be merry.
The first character 國, like I said before, means country, like China;
The second character, 長, means long or a long time.
康 - the five character usually means healthy or health, in this case it means prosperous and lasts a long time.
Therefore the whole sentence can be translated as:
國長
If a country will last long enough
春社康
then its Spring Community holiday (festival) will prosper (or last a long time).
(*It is because its people will be multiplied and become more and more prosperous).
In that regard, this item is more likely to be Chinese, not the original Japanese origin I thought. Hope this helps.
Super
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