What does this Chinese graffiti from The Sand Pebbles mean?
Late in the movie The Sand Pebbles, Steve McQueen is about to share his backstory with Candice Bergen, and there is this graffiti in the background:
Just idle curiosity on my part, I happened to pause my DVR at this scene and was curious if the graffiti was placed there intentionally for this shot.
Best Answer
Actually, it appears to say ??, not ??? as commentators above have said. (the ? and ? are connected at the bottom and top, respectively).
??, pronounced Li Si, means "John Doe", or "Anonymous".
It's part of a idiom that goes ??, ??, ?? . Kind of like English's "Tom, Dick and Harry". ?, ?, ? (Chang/Zhang, Li/Lee, and Wang/Wong) are three very common Chinese last names. ?,?, ? are 3, 4, and 5. So the phrase is "Chang number 3, Li number 4, and Wang number 5"
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What is the story of The Sand Pebbles?
The Sand Pebbles is a 1962 novel by American author Richard McKenna about a Yangtze River gunboat and its crew in 1926. It was the winner of the 1963 Harper Prize for fiction....The Sand Pebbles.First editionAuthorRichard McKennaPages5975 more rowsIs Sand Pebbles based on a true story?
It was at this point that the cast of \u201cThe Sand Pebbles\u201d met the \u201cstar\u201d of the picture\u2013the USS San Pablo. The gunboat, built in Hong Kong, was brought to Taiwan for four and one-half months of filming. \u201c8-Foot Gate\u201d represented a berth at Hankow.Why STEVE McQUEEN said \
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