You’ll excuse the artist for hooking his 小 the wrong direction, since he’s a bit of a birdbrain.

Still, I liked the style, and the medium, since that’s about the best thing one could do with Beijing’s eighth-inch of dust-dry snow.

Does anyone know if “found characters” have a formal name? I’m sure there’s some internet hound who’s collected ten thousand, but I don’t know how I’d search for them.

I can’t even find a good pic of the first found character I remember encountering. If you’ve ever driven in the US, you’ve probably noticed it too. On a bright, sunny day, there on the back of almost every semi trailer on the road (especially the white ones) is a pair of 木 characters, one on each door of the truck. I don’t remember exactly how the 木 is formed, but it has to do with the way the sun forms a shadow out of the squat, T-shaped handle that sticks out from each door. It’s so common I felt sure a quick google images search would find me one, but after now having wasted an embarrassing amount of time on it, I’m conceding defeat.

If you’ve got a found character, send it over (syz <at> sinoglot <dot> com) and I’ll add it to the post.

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And just for the record, here’s a bigger pic by the artist above.