Re: Chinese (?) translation

  From: Mangiat 

 My sister has a Japanese rosary, probably a buddhist one (we'd talked about
rosaries last month, but I don't remember very well the description BP Jonsson
did about buddhist rosasies). The problem is: there are 3 ideograms on each
bead. I've been able to find the radical and the whole ideogram of 2 of them:
  福禄
 The third is undeciphrable. Could you please tell me: does it mean something,
or if it is only an HOAX???
 My guess would be that you're looking at the three ingredients of a happy
life: happiness (fu2), prosperity (lu4), and longevity (shou4). Shou4 is a bear
of a character to remember how to write even though it has only fourteen
strokes -- probably because of all the horizontal lines. If you can't find
"shou4" phonetically in whatever resource you're using, try looking under the
three-stroke "scholar" radical and then eleven additional strokes. Together,
these three are personified as deities, "The Three Stars". "Longevity" is an
old bald guy holding a staff and a peach (another longevity symbol). I think
these are Taoist deities rather than Buddhist, but there's a lot of mixing and
matching. Anyway, if that ain't it, let me know.

  Kou