Repost: What Does the Wall Hanging Say?

Last year at this time we were living in Taian and I was teaching at Taishan Medical College. We went on a day trip to Cu Fu which is Confucius birthplace. It was a good visit, and I bought a wall hanging with calligraphy on it. As we were on our way home on the bullet train, I was horrified to realize that I had no idea what the writing on my wall hanging said. How mortifying! How touristy! How utterly American! It looks Chinese so who cares what it says. Well I have read enough bad English translations to know that it could even be cursing people or saying something totally embarrassing. I decided to wait until our English Club meeting in a few days to ask people's help. On memories on my FB feed this morning the resolution was posted.

May 6, 2017: Soooo, what does my new Chinese wall hanging say? To begin with, I may have put it the right side up, but I was reading it left to right when I should have been trying to read it right to left. (Many choices in Chinese writing.) When I found that out, it reminded me about 30 years ago in Taiwan when I was first learning Chinese. I would go to church and see the communion table with writing on it. Now the only thing I ever knew a communion table to say is "in remembrance of me." Every month or so, I would have learned one more new character written on the communion table. There finally came a Sunday when I knew every character.....and it still made no sense at all. Then I realized that for a year I had been reading it from left to right and this one went right to left!!

So what does the banner mean? On the far left are 3 vertical columns, that I thought was the poem. No. It is the name of the calligrapher who wrote it and the date and his chop. The very large 4 characters that I thought might be like Confucius name is the saying. The first rough translation was " Thick morality carries materials." Well this was not going to work. It is a famous saying and they knew the meaning, but could not tell me in English. Finally they looked it up online and it means, "Great virtue can bear all things." I am proud to have it on my wall.