What do these people do ? - Page 1
Forum section: electronics / general

author: Bud
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: December 03, 2016, 12:50:32 am
content: A few years back I took this photo when visiting Vancouver, Canada. There were several such booths across the city. To date I still do not know what these people were doing. Anyone know?

author: John Coloccia
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: December 03, 2016, 01:05:44 am
content: Vaguely reminds me of the betel nut booths in Taiwan. If so, she's doing it wrong...

author: TerraHertz
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: December 03, 2016, 01:53:17 am
content: Looks like some kind of protest sit-in.I tried a couple of online image OCR-translators, and they can't make any sense of the symbols. Perhaps too stylized?

author: Halcyon
author_rank: Unknown
timestamp: December 03, 2016, 01:59:34 am
content: A competition of sorts maybe? See who can live in a tiny box the longest while being gawked at by passersby? Looks like that lady is winning.

author: packetbob
author_rank: Contributor
timestamp: December 03, 2016, 02:00:20 am
content: It is/was a protest against the Chinese government (the Chinese consulate is behind the wall) by supporters of Falun Gong (Google to find the specifics). The protesters built a shack on city property that was there for a few years. The city finally got an injunction forcing the protesters to remove it..I think the protestors still show up now and again.....

author: Bud
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: December 03, 2016, 02:12:42 am
content: Thanks. What does "Day 1003 refers to ?"EDIT: I guess to the day of the protest... They really set there for over 3 years?

author: Marinated
author_rank: Contributor
timestamp: December 03, 2016, 02:26:10 am
content: Quote from: TerraHertz on December 03, 2016, 01:53:17 amI believe the characters are ****. It appears to be a request for peace. I found the characters by drawing them athttp://ce.linedict.com/#/cnen/homeusing the pen tool to the right of the search box.****Sorry, I had to edit the message as the Unicode characters didn't render properly, and were replaced with pesky emoticons. qing3 yuan4 he2ping2 are the syllables, I believe.

author: Rick Law
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: December 03, 2016, 10:50:54 pm
content: Quote from: TerraHertz on December 03, 2016, 01:53:17 amThe writing is classical/traditional Chinese meaning "Petition for Peace" if read as columns fromleft to right(assomemodern Chinese).But -- when read as columns fromright to leftas Classical Chinese should be, it would be "Peaceful Petition".So, original author probably didn't think it through. But, most likely, it would be "petition for peace". Then again, it could be "peaceful petition" for something that the petitioner assumes the petitioned already knew what it is all about.The two characters on theleft, top one means "please", bottom one means "desire" -- but when used together (please, I desire...) means "petition(to authority)". The two characters on theright, top one means "together", lower one means "flat". Together-flat (together, but not making wave) when used together means "peaceful"So, "petition"+"peace" = petition for peace"peace" + "petition" = peaceful petition.OCR just grab the characters individually and wont get the meaning properly.

author: TerraHertz
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: December 04, 2016, 01:27:59 am
content: Quote from: Rick Law on December 03, 2016, 10:50:54 pmThanks for the explanation.It wasn't even identifying the characters, at all. The utilities show what they think are the OCR'd characters, and that failed completely. So obviously no chance of translating anything.In the past I've used google translate to have conversations with Chinese speakers who have no English at all. It kind of works, but is very poor. The English to Chinese direction particularly bad, according to my correspondents. Even though I was using an English --> Chinese --> English loop to sanity check the result, and rephrasing till the English returned was close enough to what I wanted.It's a shame the Chinese government is so paranoid about any kind of resistance at all, such as Falun Gong. And so harsh in their repression. Add this kind of extreme control-freakism...http://www.zerohedge.com/news/2016-11-29/china-launch-social-credit-system-monitor-everything-jaywalking-internet-activity