Some of the things that I admire most about my Chinese heritage are the historical traditions in art, calligraphy, literature and poetry…and most certainly they are always iconically stamped with the creator’s personal seal…and always in red ink. These stamps are little pieces of art in and of themselves…usually carved out of wood, stone or bone by a master carver especially trained in this craft. Not only do they carve the bottom of the stamp where the actual name seal is located, but sometimes (depending on the material chosen) they also carve the top of the seal (usually in the form of the name bearer’s corresponding Chinese astrological sign or some other fortuitous dragon/lotus/phoenix bird symbol). I think almost everyone in my family has at least one stamp of their own…and when I got married, my mom commissioned a pair of stamps to be made for me and AK. I will include a photo of the actual stamps once I dig them out of our packed boxes, but here are the actual name seals for both AK (left) and me (right). Each of our names consists of three characters and are meant to be read vertically from right to left…with our surnames as the first character.
