Talk:Imperial guardian lion

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There's a sentence that says Fu is Chinese for 'happiness', but the entry for Fu doesn't indicate that. Can someone verify? Donutz 04:18, 25 Jun 2005 (UTC)

does in fact mean "happiness" or "good fortune". --Dpr 07:20, 9 November 2005 (UTC)

The reference to African lions seems wrong. Lions are also found in Asia (e.g., India).

Can someone stick up a redirection page under the title "Fu Lion". I would, but my Wiki-Fu is not best.58.186.71.52 13:16, 5 October 2006 (UTC)

Done. howcheng {chat} 17:39, 9 October 2006 (UTC)

Contents

[edit] Nurturing?

A Chinese told me that the female lion is in fact nurturing her cub by her left paw. Could someone verify. 85.124.40.135 16:53, 19 July 2005 (UTC)

[edit] Gender Reversed? Inhaling Japanese Koma Dog?

It seems that the gender of the Japanese Koma dogs is probably reversed (although) I am not sure? Please since the article says that hte male dog is inhaling life and the femal dog is exhaling death...but, one dog has its mouth closed. So I am not sure how it can be inhaling or exhaling. I am confused.

[edit] Stone ball in the mouth

My parents once told me that the stone ball found in the lions' mouth was for good luck. Essentially, people would roll it around and after enough time, it would erode and fall out. If it fell out when you rolled it, that was extremely good luck. It's a good factoid to put in this article, but I can't seem to find a citation anywhere. howcheng {chat} 03:49, 28 September 2006 (UTC)

If it rolls out while you are rolling it, you're most likely to get fined for damaging public property. Not good luck! 8-) --Sumple (Talk) 02:38, 19 February 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Right and Left

The male is actually on the left and the female is on the right from the dwelling and from the lion's point of view. The article is written from an external perspective of someone viewing the structure being protected by the lions. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 71.146.13.69 (talk) 01:45, 11 November 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Chinese name

Neo jay commented that the Chinese wikipedia article is "石狮子". Not to disparage the quality of the Chinese article too much, its subject does not correlate well with the subject of this article. This article is about guardian lions (the form or motif), not about its particular manifestation in stone sculpture form. By contrast, the Chinese wikipedia article has the following definitional sentence "石狮子就是雕刻成狮子形状的石头" -- "Shi shizi [stone lions] means stone sculpted into a lion shape". The two articles do nto correspond well. Unless the subject of this article is similarly restricted to stone sculptures only, there is no reason why the Chinese name should be "stone lion". In Chinese, you would call the sclupture by its material - 石狮,铁狮,铜狮 (stone lion, iron lion, bronze lion) as appropriate. --PalaceGuard008 (Talk) 05:47, 27 April 2008 (UTC)

Please see the article Lione of Fo in Encyclopædia Britannica. It clearly says that Lion of Fo is also called "Lion of Buddha , Dog of Fo , or Shishi (Chinese: “stone lion”) in Chinese art,...". I have added the reference to the article. And I doubt why this article is titled as "imperial...lion". The lions can also be placed in temples or at the home of the wealthy. If the imperial lion can also refer to the lions at non-imperial places, why can't stone lion also refer to the non-stone lions? Please note that Encyclopædia Britannica at least mentions Shishi and stone lion as its names, but does not mention imperial guardian lion at all. --Neo-Jay (talk) 07:10, 27 April 2008 (UTC)
"Stone lion" and "guardian lion" are clearly different concepts: one is a subset of another. If you want to focus only on stone lions, that's fine - cut out all the stuff about bronze lions and remove the pics with bronze lions, and dump that in a separate article called "Chinese lion totem" or something. As the article stands, it cannot bear the name.
Why can't "stone lions" refer to non-stone lions? Um. Because they are not stone lions.
Why can "imperial" lions refer to lions in non-imperial lions? I really have no opinion on that one and feel free to chop off the "imperial" - but imperial here can refer to the connotation of the imagery rather than the actual placement of the actual statue. Can a "Chinese flag" displayed outside China still be called a "Chinese flag"? I don't see why not. And the same goes for the Imperial eagle, doublt-headed eagle, dragon or lion. --PalaceGuard008 (Talk) 00:35, 29 April 2008 (UTC)
We are not discussing about the title of this article, but only about whether stone lion should be mentioned in its lead section as one of its other names. I have provided highly reliable source Encyclopædia Britannica. I think that it's enough to justify mentioning stone lion in the lead section. Thank you for your understanding. --Neo-Jay (talk) 07:49, 30 April 2008 (UTC)
After reconsidering your opinion, I changed Shishi back to a main page Shishi (stone lion) and removed the content that I merged from Shishi. I changed the lead section to that the imperial guardian lion is sometimes called stone lion. Hope this is OK for you. Thanks. --Neo-Jay (talk) 10:29, 30 April 2008 (UTC)
Thanks - I agree with the distinction you have made. --PalaceGuard008 (Talk) 02:11, 6 May 2008 (UTC)

[edit] "Guardian lions" redirect.

I don't see why "Guardian lions" redirect here, when there are many western style lion statue pairs to the entrances of buildings and other places, possibly originating from western heraldry, and there should very well be an article on examples of such. 67.5.147.10 (talk) 09:04, 3 May 2008 (UTC)