In this lesson we learn what a “primitive element” is by using the first 15 characters as pieces that can be fitted together to form new characters— 17 of them to be exact. Whenever the primitive meaning differs from the key-word meaning, you may want to go back to the original frame to refresh your memory. From now on, though, you should learn both the key-word and the primitive meaning of new characters as they appear. Index 2 contains a complete list of all the primitive elements in the book.
16 ancient
古 The primitive elements that compose this character are ten and mouth, but you may find it easier to remember it as a pictograph of a tombstone with a cross on top. Just think back to one of those graveyards you have visited, or better still, used to play in as a child, with ancient inscriptions on the tombstones.
This departure from the primitive elements in favor of a pictograph will take place now and again at these early stages, and almost never after that. So you need not worry about cluttering up your memory with too many character “drawings.” [5]
* Used as a primitive element, this character keeps its keyword sense of ancient, but care should be taken to make that abstract notion as graphic as possible.
17 recklessly
胡 Everyone knows what a new moon is: the first phase when the moon is illuminated 0%. So, presumably, an ancient moon, like the one in this character, is lit up at 100% wattage. And we all know what that means: people tend to get a little “loony” and start acting recklessly. [9]
18 leaf
葉 The Chinese are famous for taking a leaf and turning it into medicine. In this character, there are no less than ten different types of leaves that go into the concoction that the herbal doctor is stuffing into your mouth. The problem is, she didn’t take the trouble to grind them up with her mortar and pestle, but is shoveling them into your mouth just as they came off the tree.
Look at the character and you can see how the ten leaves are way too much for the one small mouth to handle. [5]
19 I (literary)
吾 There are a number of characters for the word I, but this one is restricted to literary use in Chinese. We need a sufficiently stuffy connotation for the key word, for which the sense of a “perceiving subject” should do just fine. Now the one place in our bodies that all five senses are concentrated in is the head, which has no less than five mouths: 2 nostrils, 2 ears, and 1 mouth. Hence, five mouths = I. [7]
20 companion
朋 The first companion that God made, as the Bible story goes, was Eve. Upon seeing her, Adam exclaimed, “Flesh of my flesh!” And that is precisely what this character says in so many strokes. [8]
21 bright
明 Among nature’s bright lights, there are two that the biblical story of creation has God set in the sky: the sun to rule over the day and the moon to rule the night. Each of them has come to represent one of the common connotations of this key word: the sun, the bright insight of the clear thinker, and the moon, the bright intuition of the poet and the seer. [8]
22 sing
唱 This one is easy! You have one mouth making no noise (the choirmaster) and two mouths with wagging tongues (the minimum for a chorus). So when you hear the key word sing, think of the Vienna Boys’ Choir or the Mormon Tabernacle Choir and the character is yours forever. [11]
23 sparkling
晶 What else can the word sparkling suggest if not a diamond?
And if you’ve ever held a diamond up to the light, you will have noticed how every facet of it becomes like a miniature sun. This character is a picture of a tiny sun in three places (that is,
“everywhere”), to give the sense of something sparkling all over the place. Just like a diamond. In writing the primitive elements three times, note again how the rule for writing given in frame 4 holds true not only for the strokes in each individual element but also for the disposition of the elements in the character as a whole. [12]
24 goods
品 As in the character for sparkling, the triplication of a single element in this character indicates “everywhere” or “heaps of.”
When we think of goods in modern industrial society, we think of what has been mass-produced—that is to say, produced for the “masses” of open mouths waiting like fledglings in a nest to
“consume” whatever comes their way. [9]
25 prosperous
昌 What we mentioned in the previous two frames about three of something meaning “everywhere” or “heaps of ” was not meant to be taken lightly. In this character we see two suns, one atop the other, which, if we are not careful, is easily confused in memory with the three suns of sparkling. Focus on the number this way: since we speak of prosperous times as sunny, what could be more prosperous than a sky with two suns in it? Just be sure to actually see them there. [8]
26 early
早 This character is actually a picture of the first flower of the day, which we shall, in defiance of botanical science, call the sunflower, since it begins with the element for sun and is held up on a stem with leaves (the pictographic representation of the final two strokes). This time, however, we shall ignore the pictograph and imagine sunflowers with needles for stems, which can be plucked and used to darn your socks.
The sense of early is easily remembered if one thinks of the sunflower as the early riser in the garden, because the sun, showing favoritism towards its namesake, shines on it before all
the others (see frame 10). [6]
* As a primitive element, this character takes the meaning of sunflower, which was used to make the abstract key word early more graphic.
27 rising sun
旭 The key word here immediately suggests the islands located to the east of China, which would make it, from China’s point of view, the Land of the Rising Sun, a name easily associated
with Japan’s national flag. If you can picture two seams running down that great red sun, and then imagine it sitting on a baseball bat for a flagpole, you have a slightly irreverent—but not
altogether inaccurate—picture of how the sport has caught on in the Land of the Rising Sun. [6]
28 generation
世 We generally consider one generation as a period of thirty (or ten plus ten plus ten) years. If you look at this character in its completed form—not in its stroke order—you will see three
tens. When writing it, think of the lower horizontal lines as “addition” lines written under numbers to add them up. Thus: ten “plus” ten “plus” ten = thirty. Actually, it’s a lot easier doing it with a pencil than reading it in a book. [5]
29 stomach
胃 You will need to refer back to frames 13 and 14 here for the special meaning of the two primitive elements that make up this character: brain and flesh (part of the body). What the character
says, if you look at it, is that the part of the body that keeps the brain in working order is the stomach. To keep the elements in proper order, when you write this character think of the brain
as being “held up” by the flesh. [9]
30 daybreak
旦 The obvious sign of daybreak is the sun peeking out over the horizon, which is pretty much what this character depicts. If you can imagine the sun poking its head out through a hole in
your floor, however, you will have an easier time remembering this character. [5]
We end this lesson with two final pictographic characters that happen to be among the easiest to recognize for their form, but among the most difficult to write. We introduce them here to run an early test on whether or not you have been paying close attention to the stroke order of the characters you have been learning.
31 concave
凹 You couldn’t have asked for a better key word for this character!
Just have a look at it: a perfect image of a concave lens (remembering, of course, that the characters square off rounded things), complete with its own little “cave.” Now all you have to do is learn how to write it. [5]
32 convex
凸 Maybe this helps you see how the Chinese have no trouble keeping convex distinct from concave. Note the odd feeling of the fourth stroke. If it doesn’t feel all that strange now, by the time you are done with this book, it will. There are very few times you will have to write it. [5]
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