Life the Video

InUnison · Post by **InUnison** » 5/25/2003, 9:45 am

Hey, I gotta question that I just remembered (ever since the life video was released). In the video what was with all of the symbols (Im not sure if it was chinese or Japanese or what). Could someone fill me in if they know?

Neil · Post by **Neil** » 5/25/2003, 9:46 am

probably to add "finese" to a good video for a not as great song

Fabio_kun · Post by **Fabio_kun** » 5/25/2003, 12:00 pm

This one in my signature, if I'm not wrong is japanese, and as you can see it means Life. Some of the others, again, if I'm not mistaken, are chinese.

I'm into japanese oriental type of stuff :mrgreen:

Cheers.

Fabio_kun · Post by **Fabio_kun** » 5/25/2003, 12:04 pm

If you want, take a look at this, but until it ends:
http://dreamtheater.net/bb/showthread.p ... adid=18837

Cheers.

Joey · Post by **Joey** » 5/25/2003, 12:05 pm

I love the symbols .. the one that's on Raine's head said 'Breathe' I think .. but I could be wrong .. then again Life is one of my favorite songs and I love the video so I just think the symbols make it even more meaningful

Fabio_kun · Post by **Fabio_kun** » 5/25/2003, 12:11 pm

From what I managed to get translated, the one on Raine's head means something like spirit/air.

Cheers.

Joey · Post by **Joey** » 5/25/2003, 12:12 pm

Oh .. cuz at the end it said 'Breathe' under that symbol .. so I assumed it meant Breathe :lol:

Fabio_kun · Post by **Fabio_kun** » 5/25/2003, 12:21 pm

Yeah, could be...

Well, if you check that link I posted, thats a talk I had with a guy who seems to know a lot about japanese and a bit of chinese... and I asked him about the OLP Life symbols.

Cheers.

nelison · Post by **nelison** » 5/25/2003, 12:55 pm

breathe is pretty much the same as air when you think of it. The two are closely related

Joey · Post by **Joey** » 5/25/2003, 1:24 pm

It's hard with symbols because there's so many different ways to draw them and they have different meaning depending on how it's drawn .. I've had a bunch of different people translate a phrase for me for a tattoo and each one has a different variation to it .. but yeah, breathe and air are similiar so it all depends I guess.

Furious George · Post by **Furious George** » 5/25/2003, 1:48 pm

All the symbols are in Kanji. What does this mean? Kanji is the word set for the Chinese language, and is also in Japanese because they use two main character sets, one which is Kanji, the other which is Katakana. (There's a third set which I won't even get to.)

So if a guy who only knew Chinese went to Japan, he might be able to read some of the signs there written in Kanji, but would have no idea what the hell everyone is sayng, because kanji is the only similarity these two languages share. Otherwise its completely different, of course this also applies to culture and the social structure there.

On the other hand if a guy who only knew Japanese went to China he'd understand all the signs, but once again would have no idea what everyone is saying.

So uh, back to the Life video, calling it either Japanese or Chinese characters are fine, but usually people would call it Chinese since it is expressly the "chinese" set of words.

So there you have it, phew..

Fabio_kun · Post by **Fabio_kun** » 5/25/2003, 2:10 pm

I have about 4 japanese fonts in my computer. Kanki, Katakana and Hirigana

I want to learn how to speak and write in japanese... SOOO bad.

Cheers.

Joe Cooler · Post by **Joe Cooler** » 5/25/2003, 2:34 pm

Basic Japanese isnt really all that hard to learn, your just dealing with sounds rather than letters. The sound "Wa" for example.. is a symbol. It's just gets really complicated when you start getting into the other character set.. where each character represents entire words, meaning theres hundreds..

Henrietta · Post by **Henrietta** » 5/27/2003, 8:54 pm

I think it's a great song and a great video

I want to get that breathe sybmol as a tat.

Furious George · Post by **Furious George** » 5/27/2003, 9:35 pm

I loved the video as well. The whole simple concept behind it was cool. Although I gotta side with Ed the Sock when he says "Why do all rock bands have to insert Chinese symbols into music videos just to show they're capable of intelligent thought?"

thirdhour · Post by **thirdhour** » 5/28/2003, 11:03 am

i thought the video was great until ed said that and i thought, damn, he's right :oops:

superrgirll · Post by **superrgirll** » 5/28/2003, 11:04 am

ed the sock and i once had a conversation about teeth.

thirdhour · Post by **thirdhour** » 5/28/2003, 12:28 pm

you don't say.... :wtf:

Joey · Post by **Joey** » 5/28/2003, 5:13 pm

What other bands have chinese symbols in their videos? I can't think of one :freak:

Furious George · Post by **Furious George** » 5/28/2003, 5:57 pm

Well the point is, the video had Chinese characters that I'm sure no one on the set had any idea meant, and most likely used them only because their "cool."

Not a big deal, but it's the truth ain't it?