砍 kǎn – cut

The Peach, fruit of immortality In my "Manual of Writing Chinese Characters" (1) I hold an opinion contrary to that of most scholars of Chinese characters, and that is that the formation of the so-called picto-phonetic characters responds not only to the composition...

Discovering the tiger and the shaman in Chinese characters. In Chinese skin is pifu (皮肤). In the character pi 皮, which means skin, one can still discover a hand flaying a skin. The character fu 肤, however, is a simplified character, showing us the radical of the...

Chinese character for "snake” The Chinese character to represent the snake has undergone over the centuries a curious evolution that, although seen from the cultural perspective of the XXI century may seem strange, it will not be so much if we remember the symbolism...

The Kudzu vine, a necessary plant. In the last edition of my book on Chinese characters I explained the character 葛 as follows: gé - kudzu vine. A plant 艹 asked 曷 for its beneficial properties and for its use in making clothes. And in turn曷 is explained: hé - how,...

Chinese character 灸 jiǔ – moxibustion 1. moxibustion. 2. cauterize. HSK - STROKES - 7 RADICAL -  火 Elements  ----  Fire radical 火 + long time 久. Phonetic series 久. Fire 火 with lasting 久 effect on health.针灸      zhēnjiǔ acupuncture and moxibustion.More posts on Chinese...

Chinese character 疚 jiù – chronic disease 1. chronic disease. 2. remorse. HSK - STROKES - 8 RADICAL - 疒 Elements  ----  Illnes radical 疒 + long time 久. Phonetic series 久. It causes pain 疒 for long time 久.   内疚  nèijiù  – remorse (inner + remorse) 疚心 jiùxīn   – ashamed...