I didn’t know Ken used it, I just stole it from a recent thread on here because I thought it was funny. I changed it so the guy has black hair and put the Chinese character on there.
It’s not Japanese kanji but a Chinese good fortune character that is typically turned upside down so that the fortune is “pouring” into the household.
Thanks everyone, for their posts. Francine and Eric, I wish you the best of luck dealing with the issues that you’ve had identified. My hope was that this post would raise awareness for people in this community, and people who may hear about it from someone who reads this board.
Thanks Cary, for the N-acetyl cysteine tip. Do you take it daily, or just before drinking? Also, I seem to recall coming across something that said niacin supplements might also have a beneficial effect for people with this issue. When I have more time, I’ll comb through my reading materials to see where I saw this.
One other note: I posted this on E-Bob as well, and one thing came up in that discussion that I meant to include in the original post as well, about how smoking exacerbates the effect of this problem. The relevant language in the PLoS study mentions:
“However, patients should also be informed that smoking further increases the esophageal cancer risk in a synergistic manner with alcohol [30]. As noted above, cigarette smoking dramatically increases acetaldehyde levels in saliva, and ALDH2-deficient individuals have a reduced capacity to clear salivary acetaldehyde.”
So, if you experience flush reactions to alcohol and you smoke too, there’s even more reason to pay serious attention to these findings.
I only take it if I drink, which is almost daily ![[cheers.gif]](/uploads/db3686/original/2X/0/0ff9bfcdb0964982cd3240b6159868fbdf215b1a.gif "cheers"){kind=small}
. I have a break on Monday. I take a 500-600mg capsule one to two hours before drinking. If it’s a party night like the recent holidays, will take another dose midway through the night.
Chinese people tend to underestimate how many characters were borrowed by the Japanese
In Japanese your character is “Fuku” which means fortune, blessing, luck, wealth.
In religion, Fukuinsho means “the Gospels” (good news)
It’s a little hard to recognize in the simplified form.
福
I’m not a Chinese etymologist, so I don’t know who actually created the 福 character first. I’d take an even money bet or even a 4:5 that it’s China. I’d be interested if someone knew the answer definitively with a citation. Good random knowledge.
The character I have on my avatar is the ancient Chinese way of writing the 福 character but upside down. 福 is the modern way.
Anyways asian flush asian flush
The Japanese word “kanji” translates as “Chinese characters.” I think kan = “Han”
漢字
There is no doubt that most kanji came from China with just a handful of Japanese inventions added in.
Yup. 漢字=Han-zi= Chinese words/characters.
I’m fascinated by linguistics (my older mentor at my first company I worked at was always coming by with random facts he dug up on Asian languages) so this has been an entertaining diversion even though the thread was originally about the dreaded Asian Flush.