百/100

Another natural Chinese-English ambigram. 百 is the Chinese character for “hundred.”

一号 / No. 1

An all-natural Chinese-English ambigram. 一号 means “number one.”

Yes/是

This is almost a naturally occurring ambigram, requiring very little tweaking. I can’t say that 是 is “Chinese for yes,” since Chinese doesn’t really have a single word that corresponds to yes, but it’s about as close as you can get.

凶/Bad

Back when I made my Dead/死 ambigram, I said, “Now if I could come up with an English rotational ambigram which is also a Chinese rotational ambigram, and which has the same meaning in both languages, that would be the holy grail.” I’m getting closer:

The symmetry here is reflectional rather than rotational, but it still comes close to my goal: an English ambigram which is simultaneously a Chinese ambigram with the same meaning. Unfortunately, the symmetry involved is pretty trivial, even more so in the Chinese than the English. (Bilaterally symmetrical Chinese characters are approximately 0.68 RMB a dozen.) Ideally I’d like something involving more than one character, or at least a character that’s not naturally symmetrical.

蛋/Egg

The Chinese word for “egg” looks a lot like its English counterpart. It only takes a little tweaking to make it a proper ambigram.

死/Dead

Here’s a more successful Chinese-English ambigram I came up with: the English word dead, made up of the Chinese character 死, which also means “dead,” and its rotation.

The only thing I’m not satisfied with is the fact that the right half doesn’t mean anything in Chinese — so it’s not really a Chinese ambigram, just an English ambigram that incorporates a Chinese character. Now if I could come up with an English rotational ambigram which is also a Chinese rotational ambigram, and which has the same meaning in both languages, that would be the holy grail.

台東/Taidong

This is my first Chinese-English ambigram, the name of a city in southeastern Taiwan written both in Chinese characters and in romanized form.