[Avodah] Chinese on Shabbos

[Micha Berger]

Opening up a vacuum-sealed pouch of tea imported from China, the following
question came up:

How many Chinese ideograms would it take for the shiur of mechiqah on
Shabbos? I assume the shiur would have to derive from that for kesivah,
but that wasn't the situation.

So, here were answers we played with:

One, because each one has at least as much info as two Hebrew letters?

Any one idiogram comprised of more than 2 standard stokes, treating
each stroke as an os? (However they did typewriters, they must have
standardized pieces of letters to pull it off.)

Two idiograms, because you can't mark to qerashim with one symbol? And
if so, what if someone erases an asterisk and a list bullet, were they
mechalel Shabbos? Those too are enough to mark boards.

An idiogram is a stylized picture representing the meaning of the word,
or a combination of such pictures each for part of the meaning of the
word. (eg China is written Central/Middle + State, which does NOT mean
they think their country is the center, but that the state from which
it gets the name Zhongguo was in the center of the unified empire.)

So, R' Taubes (head of MTA, YU HS for Boys), who I roped into this
discussion at a chasunah last night, thought that we would first have
to establish whether or not it was kesiva at all by our standards.

Tir'u baTov!
-Micha

-- 
Micha Berger             Strength does not come from winning. Your
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