0086 去

去

This character means ‘leave, go away.’ The Japanese pronunciation is KYO or saru and the Chinese is qù.

The upper part,

土,

means ‘earth, soil, ground, land, the earth.’ The lower part,

厶,

once represented the cocoon of a silkworm. However, there are other explanations for this character. Wieger says that the upper part was the lid of an empty vessel, the lower part, and the concept was that whatever was in the pot would leave the pot.

Sears sees the lower part as an enclosure, but sees the upper part as a man leaving an enclosure. Here are some of the archaic versions of the character:

    

One can see in them justification for any or all of these concepts.

0085 恐

恐

This character means ‘fear, terrible.’ It’s pronounced KYŌ, osoreru, osoroshii, or kowai in Japanese, and it’s kǒng in Chinese.

The lower figure,

心,

means ‘heart, mind, soul,’ which are the parts of a person which become afraid or terrified.

The upper figure,

巩,

is just there as a phonetic clue, however. It means ‘bind, firm, secure, strong, which doesn’t provide much help in remembering the meaning of today’s character...unless we can remember both, with a little story about a heart being bound, i.e., constricted by fear. The upper left portion,

工,

means ‘work, labor,’ and is pronounced gōng in Chinese, by the way. It’s the ‘gong’ in ‘qigong,’ which means ‘qi work’ or, loosely, ‘energy work.’ It looks like the end view of an I-beam to me, and I find it easy to associate that with work and labor...and perhaps even with fear, since I’d be afraid to find myself standing high in a building under construction on an I-beam.

凡,

in the upper right, means ‘mediocre, common, ordinary,’ and what could be more terrifying than being trapped at work, 工, with mediocre colleagues?

0084 指

指

This character means ‘finger (also ‘toe’ in Chinese), point to.’ It’s pronounced yubi (finger) and sasu in Japanese; zhǐ in Chinese.

The figure on the left is a simplified version of the character for ‘hand’:

手.

The right-hand portion

旨

means ‘purpose, meaning, excellent, skillful,’ but it’s there just as a sound clue. Originally it signified a person

匕

who speaks

曰 ,

meaning ‘an imperial decree,’ and looked more like this:

 .

(Please ignore the fact that 匕 now means ‘spoon,’ rather than ‘man,’ and that 日 means ‘day, sun.’)

Perhaps we can think of the purpose of the hands being excellently and skillfully implemented by the fingers, our target word.

0083 覚

覚

This character means ‘to remember, learn, feel,’ (in Japanese; pronounced KAKU and oboeru) and also ‘to wake up’ (in Japanese, sameru, and Chinese, jué). There is virtually no information about its history in my usual sources.

The lower figure,

見,

means ‘to see, observe, perceive,’ which gets us most of the way, semantically, to ‘remember, wake up, etc.’

The upper part has no clear independent meaning, but we can take it for the thinking cap of someone who is learning or for the tousled hair of one who has just woken up.

0082 体

体

This character means ‘body, group, object, reality.’ In Japanese it’s pronounced TAI or karada, and in Chinese it’s tǐ.

亻

is just a compressed way to write

人,

a man on two legs, meaning ‘man, people.’

本

means ‘root, origin’ in Chinese, but in Japanese it means ‘origin, real, true,’ but also ‘book.’ In today’s character it gives a sound clue, which is no help to us in remembering the character’s meaning. We could, however, think of a person’s ‘reality’ as their body. Or, if we saw ‘person’ and ‘book’ in the character, we could think, rather poetically, that the person’s ‘book’ is the person’s body, as in, ‘You could read her like a book.’

0081 看

看

This character is a great picture. A hand,

手,

over an eye, shading it,

目,

means ‘to watch, to see, to examine.’

It’s pronounced KAN and miru in Japanese, and it’s kàn in Chinese.

The archaic characters are very close to the modern one:

 .

The eye in that second character above is very attentive, don’t you think?

0080 葉

葉

This character means ‘leaf.’ It’s pronounced YŌ and ha or happa in Japanese, and yè in Chinese.

The upper part,

艹,

stands for ‘grass,’

and the lower part,

木,

is the familiar character for ‘tree.’

The bit in the middle,

世,

means ‘generation, world, society, era, life.’ It and the tree are actually just there as a sound hint, but one can put all the parts together—grass, tree, and life—and maybe that will remind one of ‘leaf.’

However, another way to deal with this character is by looking at the archaic versions:

  .

It sure looks like those are trees...with leaves. And the bit that now means ‘generation, world, etc.,’ in the middle, just looks like the branches of the trees. And the ‘grass’ on top also just looks like leaves. Sometimes it seems like scribes over the centuries tended to regularize these older pictures by drawing them as if they were made of pieces which (today?) have other meanings. Or maybe those branches ‘generate’ the leaves.

0079 責

責

This character has somewhat different meanings in Chinese and Japanese. In the former it means ‘one’s duty, responsibility,’ but in the latter it means ‘to blame, censure, or condemn,’ as well as ‘responsibility.’ And in either case, it’s hard to connect the elements of the character with the meaning. It’s pronounced SEKI and semeru in Japanese, zé in Chinese.

The lower part,

貝,

means ‘sea shell, cowry, (and in Chinese only) money.’ The meaning of the upper part, apparently a combination of

亠  and  土,

is not very clear. Japanese doesn’t use it on its own and in Chinese it seems to mean ‘to stab,’ but it takes a different form in that case:

朿.

Very confusing.

So let’s just assume that money is the root of all evil. Or cowries are the root of all evil, as in the old days when, in some societies, cowries could be used as cash. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Shell_money

And when money is combined with the very confusing device on top of the character, there will be something heavy coming along, either some sort of responsibility or blame for using such an obscure mark.

0078 先

先

This character means ‘first, ahead, previous, the future.’ In Japanese, it can be pronounced SEN and saki, and in Chinese it’s xiān.

All my informants (see Useful Information) agree that the two ‘legs’ in the bottom half of the character,

儿

signify ‘a man.’ No one agrees, or even has a convincing story about the top half. So we are left to our own devices.

牛

represents a cow or a bull (which no commentator mentions), and this is very close to the top half of the character. It seems helpful to see a man and a bull together and picture the man driving the bull ahead, or even into the future.

0077 忘

忘

This character means ‘to forget.’ The Japanese pronunciation is BŌ or wasureru. The Chinese pronunciation is wàng.

The lower figure is the familiar ‘heart, mind’ character, somewhat flattened to fit the space available. Here’s the character as it stands on its own:

心.

The upper figure,

亡,

means ‘perish, destroy, die, dead.’ It was really only put in to provide a clue to the sound of the word, but its meaning can be useful in remembering the character. Its early forms,

  ,

showed a man in a grave or someone going into a hiding place. Wieger says that the right-angled line represents a hiding place and that the upper figure is an early form of

入,

which means ‘to enter.’

All of this adds up to ‘perishing from the mind,’ meaning ‘to forget.’

0076 果

果

Here’s an easy one: This character means ‘fruit,’ ‘accomplish,’ or ‘result.’ It’s pronounced KA or hatasu in Japanese, guǒ in Chinese.

There’s the character

田,

meaning ‘field,’ and

木,

meaning ‘tree.’ If you have a tree in a field and all goes well, you should get a result—fruit.

Here are some archaic versions:

     .

I don’t know why they seem to be upside-down. Shouldn’t the tree be on the field, rather than the field on the tree?

0075 年

年

This character means ‘year,’ pronounced NEN or toshi in Japanese and nián in Chinese.

Sources agree that it represents a man carrying home the year-end harvest, as represented by the character for grain-on-the-stalk (left, below) or rice (right, below):

禾   米.

By extension, then, the year-end harvest came to represent ‘year,’

The man and grain can be seen, sort of, in the archaic characters,

 .

I can make out the grain on top, and I assume that the thing something like a question mark on the bottom is the man. It looks a lot like

子,

which now means ‘child.’ It’s hard to see why that symbol would mean ‘man.’ Wieger says that 子 is a baby with two hands swathed up, and thus the single ‘leg.’ However, it also meant ‘sage, teacher,’ because, as an honor, the ancient Emperors called such wise men ‘sons.’ So maybe the people carrying the grain are ‘children of the sacred grain,’ or something like that; that’s merely my speculation. Seeing the grain and the man in the modern character are difficult, though.

0074 送

送

This character means ‘to send.’ It’s pronounced SŌ and okuru in Japanese and sòng in Chinese. Remember that for Japanese, the pronunciation in upper-case letters is the one derived from the Chinese of the time when Japan adopted the Chinese writing system. Of course, Japanese already had a word meaning ‘send,’ and that word is represented in lower-case letters.

The character wrapping around the left and lower sides,

辶,

means ‘walk, walking.’ The other part of the character,

关,

now means ‘a frontier pass,’ ‘close,’ and ‘relation,’ and it’s not commonly used in Japanese on its own. Sears says it’s a contraction of a character that meant ‘the maid of the bride, who is sent to the bride’s new home with her.’ Thus, the character originally meant ‘to send off the new bride on her wedding day.’