St. John's

This is a shot of my former school, St. John's University, which is a name that I really like. Well, in Chinese, that is.

The Chinese translation of the name "John," in the Christian way, is read as "uei-han," and the respective Chinese characters associated with the sounds are written as "約" and "翰". These two characters each means, in the case of "uei," "covenant" and, in the case of "han," something related to education. However, for the second character, I always like to add a bushou (radical index) that denotes "water" to the left side of the Chinese character and thus make the word "瀚" that has the meaning "endless." So, if I write using the second character for "han" that I described above, the meaning of "uei-han" will be changed to a more reasonable one, which is "a covenant that is endless," or, perhaps, "a covenant that is forever." And, if we put the Chinese character "聖," which is the translation of "saint" that also means "holy," in front of the two characters, we will have, as a result, a combination of the three Chinese characters "聖約瀚" that has the same sound of the school's actual name and means "a holy covenant that is forever."

So, yes, that is the alternative meaning with the same sound, and that's why I really like the name "St. John's University."

~tJah

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聖約翰
這是我前所學校的名字
雖翻成「約翰」
我卻總是喜歡在「翰」前面加個三點水
使其變成「瀚」
使得「聖約翰」
真的是一個有「浩瀚無垠的神聖之約」的地方
真的成為「聖約瀚」

~tJah