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I posted this in the other forum, but it got swept away pretty quick. Im just hoping someone can translate the writing, it seems pretty legible. Think its a brush pot or walking stick stand. Thanks for the help.

I found out that this is Chinese. I showed a picture of this piece to a server while at lunch at a Sushi restaurant. He told me that it was Chinese and that all he could make out was the word water. So, afterwards I stopped by a local Chinese restaurant and the woman said it was Chinese, but she wasn't able to translate from Chinese to English, she wasn't sure of the words the Chinese characters translated to. I tried to do some of my own translations. I wrote the characters down on paper and got some rough translations using google translation via pictures of my written characters, but its hard to put together what they mean in conjunction. I figure the chop is the bit with the artists name, but that is completely foreign to me. Here's what I got from my research.

水 - Water
木- Wood (not sure about this one, also thought it looked close to the symbols for forest, timber, but not an exact match)
堂 - hall, court, large room
清 - Clear, clean, distinct, quiet
山 - mountain
刀 - knife

Based off these translations I think 2 possibilities:

1. Is that it is explaining what it is ie. a device that holds water to clean something like a brush.

2. Thats its a poem or descriptive sentence like "The (blank) hall on the quiet mountain in Jishan? I say Jishan because for a brief moment the translator said this word when it combined 2 of the characters. Although, it may have just been reaching. I know that Chinese is very complicated and it's all about the order of symbols used that make words or completely different sentences from the use of the individual word. When I combine the last 3 characters (清山刀) in the translator together it gives me Qing Shan knife.

Am I on to anything with this or am I just shooting blanks?
I honestly find both Chinese and Japanese to be very interesting languages and cultures and I would definitely like to learn more about them.

I believe the characters in the right-hand stack are 水林堂 (Shui Lin Tang), possibly read as 'Hall of Rivers and Forests', though shui is literally water. There is a Shuilin Township in Yunlin County, Taiwan, though I can't say if that information is at all relevant. I found Shui-lin Tang (same characters) on a list of Catholic organizations in Chiayi Municipality, Taiwan.

Best regards,

Bill H.

IMO, the decoration is a Japanese scene depicting a (Japanese) dragon (with only three claws) fighting a giant catfish or a giant eel. Could be Ryûjin, a dragon god who symbolizes the power of the ocean, fighting a namazu (catfish). In Japanese mythology, namazu were held responsible for causing earthquakes. Can we see an image of the head of this beast?
The inscription on the right reads, in Japanese, 水林堂,　Mizubyashidô or Suirindô. The meaning is not clear to me. The signature reads 清山刀 Seizan tô (cut by Seizan). This craftsman could eventually be a certain Nakamura Seizan (中村清山) but I'm not sure of that. I add some pictures of his work in bamboo and wood.

Guy

Hi Guy,

Your carvings remind me of this pair of unsigned door guards (menshen) I bought in Taiwan 30 years ago at Sanyi, a village of woodcarvers in the mountains south of Taipei. Taiwan was a Japanese colony for almost 50 years before the end of World War II, and many Taiwanese still spoke Japanese when I last lived there in the 1980's. Taiwanese artists create many arts & crafts to cater to Japanese tourists who visit the island in droves. I once visited a hand-made mulberry-bark paper factory near Taipei, which operation catered almost exclusively to Japanese clients. You might wish to consider whether the carved bamboo is a candidate for a 'Made in Taiwan' label.

Best regards,

Bill H.

Thank both of you, Guy and Bill, for taking the time to respond. I tried searching around a little on both of the recommended criteria, but I wasn't able to find much.

Bill, you think this might be a Japanese carving done in Taiwan? When I searched the characters I too found that Catholic organization which was definitely interesting.

Guy, since you didn't see the full picture, and the other ones were quite far away, it was hard to make out the scene. It is indeed a 3 clawed dragon but it has a pearl in his grips. Is Nakamura Seizan a person? Are you using Seizan in terms of a member of Jōdo-shū Buddhism, or is there another definition.

I would think based on the color of the wood and wear that this carving was done somewhere around the turn of the century. Early 20th, late 19th. Maybe you can make some other observations based on the pics I will include in this post. In any event, thanks to the both of you for your time helping me with this.

Seizan is just the (art)name of the craftsman who carved the wood or the bamboo.
A dragon with a crystal pearl/orb in his claw represents in Buddhist mythology, power/mastery over heaven and earth.
Can you post also an image of the fish's head in order to be sure that it is indeed a namazu/catfish?

Guy.

I don't see any fish in the pictures. The tail shown, which is triangular and very similar to a fish, belongs to the dragon. The dragon's body circles around the whole tube and back on to itself; clutching the pearl.

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