Signature seals are used in China and other parts of East Asia to prove identity on documents, contracts, art, and so on. They are typically made of stone, sometimes of wood or metal, and are used with a bright red paste made with ground cinnabar, castor oil and silk strands. The seal is colloquially referred to as a “chop” while its imprint is a “yin”. When you dip the end of the seal in the red paste and stamp it onto paper, it produces a seal like one of these:
The Chinese letters on the chop may be in relief (left) or engraved (right). Both can be produced to a high quality, as in the examples above, but it is the latter form that is generally used for the low-cost tourist versions, scratched into the stone hurriedly with one eye on the till, as the customer wanders around the shop impatiently.
The examples above show the same name carved in (left to right): old fashioned Chinese script in relief, more traditional Chinese script in relief, and a simpler, engraved version.
Most people in China possess a personal chop. Artists, scholars, collectors and intellectuals may possess several different versions of their name, as well as seals that express a mood (such as “tranquillity” or “happiness”), and studio or business seals. They may be carved by specialist seal carvers or by the users themselves. They are therefore often not merely a signature but an expression of individuality, frame-of-mind and style. One or more may be affixed to documents, works of art and so on. Chinese artists use their chop to sign their art (see left), but art owners may also add their chop to the painting, both to signify ownership and as a tribute to the work. These additions are traditional, and as long as they do not obstruct the artwork, are considered a compliment to the artist.
Transliterating foreign names
A problem posed in creating chops for non-Chinese names is how to “transliterate” them. Each syllable can be written many hundreds of ways in Chinese. Ideally one would select versions that are meaningful to person in question. Failing that, they would choose syllables with happy or auspicious connotations.
A free online tool produced these symbols for my "Jonathan", instructing me that it had used “-san” rather than “-tan” as the last syllable (somehow that does sound more Chinese). Surnames are not usually included in chops. Obviously it would be a little hard to fit them on a chop. One would have to be streched and the other two compressed. (The syllables actually used on my chop are different.)
To be continued...
