I’ve added another shirt to the Year of the Tiger line. I want to get as much out as possible before the Chinese New Year. For this t-shirt I focused on the teeth of the tiger and I made its fangs extra large, almost like those of a sabertooth tiger. The Chinese character for tiger is etched into one of its upper fangs. Again, I didn’t put “2010″ in the design so this shirt can be worn any time.

The Chinese New Year begins on February 14, 2010. Get ready for the celebrations and pick up the Year of the Tiger (Teeth) T-Shirt today!

Update: This shirt is a re-release. The new version has an outline of the tiger’s skull added around the teeth.

Just as promised I’m releasing a new t-shirt celebrating the upcoming Chinese New Year, the year of the tiger. The design is a simple two-color print of the head of a tiger with the Chinese character for tiger inscribed on its forehead. I decided not to put the year as part of the design so this shirt can be worn any time, not just in 2010.

The Chinese New Year is actually the new year of the lunar calendar. It is without a doubt the single most important holiday in the Chinese calendar. Celebrations are marked by firecrackers, lion dances, gifts, and red envelopes, but most importantly, there is lots and lots of delicious Chinese food. Not only is it big in China and Taiwan, the lunar new year is celebrated in other Asian countries as well.

The Chinese New Year begins on February 14, 2010. Get ready for the celebrations and pick up the Year of the Tiger (Head) T-Shirt today!

Update: This shirt is a re-release. The new version has the Chinese character for tiger as part of the tiger’s stripes.

The final shirt in the Sinotology collection of Chinese t-shirts is the Aiya! T-Shirt. The design features the word “aiya” in script with its Chinese charaters above.

Aiya! is perhaps the most commonly used phrase in the Chinese language. Walk into any area heavily populated by Chinese people and you’ll no doubt hear it every minute. Aiya doesn’t mean anything. It is an exclamation of surprise, displeasure, or despair, and is used every time a Chinese person is in any bad situation, from trivial to severe. “Aiya! I forgot my keys.” “Aiya! They’re going to amputate my leg.” “Aiya! I didn’t buy this shirt.” Pick up the Aiya! T-Shirt today!

The companion piece to the Chinese Chess Red Private T-Shirt is the Chinese Chess Black General T-Shirt. It is based on the black general piece and also given a camouflage pattern.

Just like the king of western chess, the general is the head of each side and has very limited movement. Capturing your opponent’s general gives you victory and ends the game. Pick up the Chinese Chess Black General T-Shirt today!

Next up in the line of Chinese t-shirts is the Chinese Chess Red Private T-Shirt. The design is based on the red private piece in Chinese chess, but I’ve given it a red camouflage pattern in case you ever need to do battle on Mars.

Chinese chess is very much like western chess. It is a strategy board game where the army of each side is trying to capture the king, or general in the Chinese version. Each piece can only move a certain way. Instead of white and black, the pieces in Chinese chess are red and black. And just like pawns, privates are the lowliest pieces. I remember playing Chinese chess when I was a kid but I don’t remember how to play it today. Might as well start playing it again with this t-shirt on. Pick up the Chinese Chess Red Private T-Shirt today!

The next shirt in the line of Chinese t-shirts is the Oh Yeah! T-Shirt. The design is a graphic representation of the peace sign, with the words “oh yeah” written along the side in both English and Chinese.

Chinese people (as well as Asians in general) throw up the peace sign frequently, given any positive situation. This is especially true when posing in front of the camera. Putting up the peace sign when taking a picture is almost like a knee jerk reaction—your brain automatically does it without thinking. I don’t know how it started or why the Chinese and other Asians do it but it is now a part of their identity. Pick up the Oh Yeah! T-Shirt today!

Next up in the introductory line of Chinese t-shirts is the Bagua T-Shirt. This design is basically a flat 3D (is there such a thing?) interpretation of the bagua diagram.

Ok I have to admit that I really don’t know much about the concept of bagua. Wikipedia describes it as:

The Ba gua (Chinese: 八卦; pinyin: bā guà; Wade-Giles: pa kua; literally “eight symbols”) are eight diagrams used in Taoist cosmology to represent a range of interrelated concepts. Each consists of three lines, each either “broken” or “unbroken,” representing a yin line or a yang line, respectively. Due to their tripartite structure, they are often referred to as “trigrams” in English.

There’s a lot more detail to it than that but unfortunately it is something I never learned about. I think the symbol looks cool however. I do know it has many applications such as in feng shui and the I Ching, and there’s even a kung fu style derived from it called the baguazhang. I first saw it many years ago when I was a kid. In Chinese vampire movies (actually they’re more like zombies but that’s how they translate it), the monks would use the bagua against the vampires, and it’s highly effective against them. Pick up the Bagua T-Shirt today!

Update: This shirt is a re-release. The new version has a grunge texture added to the design.

In the last post I introduced the first in the series Chinese character designs, the Chinese Character Ice T-Shirt. The idea for this series came about because most Chinese t-shirts that have characters on them are really boring. Most of the time they’re just done in a plain ol’ font or in brush script. Brush scripts do look cool but seriously, they’re played out. Don’t even get me started on the ones that look like a six-year-old wrote it or the ones that are just plain wrong. So I thought it would be refreshing to make some Chinese character t-shirts that have a creative twist to them and really push the limits of what’s possible. All characters will be specially designed. No plain fonts here.