RTK Lesson 10

Question 1

Tree

Answer 1

木

207

Here we see the pictograph of a tree, showing the main trunk in the long vertical stroke and the boughs in the long horizontal stroke. The final two strokes sweep down in both directions to indicate the roots. Although it may look similar at first sight to the kanji for water (FRAME 137), the order in which it is written is completely different and this affects its final appearance.

*As a primitive, this kanji can mean tree or wood. When the last two strokes are detached from the trunk (ホ) We shall change the meaning to pole, or wooden pole.

Question 2

Grove

Answer 2

林

208 (Tree [x2])

Learn this frame in connection with the next one. A grove is a small cluster of trees. Hence the simple reduplication ion the kanji for tree gives us grove.

Question 3

Forest

Answer 3

森

209 (Tree [x3])

A forest is a large expanse of trees, or “trees, trees everywhere,” to adopt the expression we used in frames 22 and 23.

Question 4

Japanese Judas-tree

Answer 4

桂

210 (Tree, Ivy)

Unless you are a botanist, you are not likely to know what a Japanese Judas-Tree looks like, and probably never heard of it before, but the name is sufficiently odd to make remembering it easy. Using the primitives as our guide, we define it as a tree with ivy growing down its branches in the shape of a hangman’s rope.

Question 5

Oak

Answer 5

柏

211 (Tree, White)

This kanji calls to mind the famous myth of the “Golden Bough.” As you may recall, what made the sacred Oak in the first of Diana the Huntress outside of Rome “golden” were the white berries of the mistletoe that grew in branches of the tree. When the light of the sun shone through them, they turned yellow and the branch to which they clung appear to be made of gold. (If you don’t know the story, take a break today and hunt down it down in a dictionary of myth and fable. Even if you forget the kanji-which, of course you won’t-the story of mistletoe and the fate it brought to Boulder the Beautiful is one you are sure to remember.)

Question 6

Frame

Answer 6

枠

212 (Wood, Nine, Ten)

You might think of the frame of this character refers to as the sort of frame we have created by drawing a dark line around this kanji and its explanation. Then think of that line as made of very thin wood; and finally now how each time the line bends it forms a 90º angle, and thus giving us the nine and the ten.

Question 7

Treetops

Answer 7

梢

213 (Tree, Candle)

As the days grow shorter and shorter, or so the European myth goes, the fear grows that the sun will take its leave of us altogether, abandoning the world to total darkness. Fixing candles to the evergreen trees, it was believed, would lure the sun back (like things attracting like things), whence the custom of the lighted tree that eventually found its way into our Christmas customs. The story is a lot longer and more complex than that, but it should help to fix the image of climbing high up into the treetops to fix candles on the tree.

Question 8

Shelf

Answer 8

棚

214 (Wood, Companion)

One often thinks of books as “good companions,” but here it is the shelf we store them on that is the companion. It is made out of the same stuff, wood, and spends a lot more time with them than we do. Here again, be careful not to let the rationality of the explanation get in the way before you turn it into a proper story.

Question 9

Apricot

Answer 9

杏

215 (Tree, Mouth)

Since apricots can be eaten just as they fall from trees, picture this mouth agape at the bottom of the tree (just as the elements have it), waiting for apricots to fall into it.

Question 10

Paulownia

Answer 10

桐

216 (Tree, Sameness)

One of the most common types of Japanese furniture in the Kiri-Dansu. This is made of Paulownia wood. It is light in color, light in weight, but relatively strong. As a bonus it also has moth repellent characteristics. For the above reasons, everyone uses the same wood for their clothing drawers, the Paulownia.

Question 11

Plant

Answer 11

植

217 (Tree, Straight)

You have no doubt seen how people practicing the Japanese art of Bonsai take those helpless little saplings and twist them into crippled dwarves before they have a chance to grow up as they should. The more proper way to plant a young tree and give it a fair shake in life is to set it into the earth such a way that it can grow up straight.

Question 12

Chair

Answer 12

椅

218 (Tree, Strange)

Instead of making a chair out of wood from a tree, this kanji has us making the whole tree into a chair, which must look most strange sitting in your living room where the sofa used to be.

Question 13

Wither

Answer 13

枯

219 (Tree, Old)

What makes a tree begin to wither up, and perhaps even die, is a kind of arteriosclerosis that keeps its sap from flowing freely. Usually this is due to simple old age, as this character shows us. Be sure to picture a wrinkled old tree, withering away in a retirement center so that the commonsense explanation does not take over.

Question 14

Crude

Answer 14

朴

220 (Wood, Magic Wand)

As all magicians who have passed their apprenticeship know, one make one’s wand out of hazel branch and is careful not to alter the natural form of wood. For the magic of the wand derives its power from its association with the hidden laws of nature, and needs therefore to be kept in its crude, natural state.

Question 15

Town

Answer 15

村

221 (Tree, Glued Together)

The character for village was associated with rice fields FRAME 96. That for town, a step up on the evolutionary path to cities, shows that of trees being glued together the measure off the confines of a town.

You can also imagine a toy town made by a little boy on Christmas Day, happily gluing together wood to make the homes, shops, and other belongings of a town.

Question 16

Inter-

Answer 16

相

222 (Tree, Eye)

The prefix inter- stirs up associations of cooperation among people. From there we read off the elements: tree… eye. With only a slight leap of imagination, those two words call to mind the scriptural proverb about first taking the block of timber out of one’s own eye before helping your neighbors remove the splinters in their eyes. What more useful rule for inter-human relationships, and what more useful tool for remembering this kanji.

Question 17

Desk

Answer 17

机

223 (Tree, Wind)

We need to fix imagination here on two things to learn this kanji for desk: the wonderful rough wood of which it has been hewn and the wind that blows it across, sending papers flying all over the room. These two elements, written in that order, dictate how to write this kanji.

Question 18

Book

Answer 18

本

224 (Wood, One)

Recalling that books are made of paper, and paper made of trees, one might think of a book as a slice of tree. Can you see the “cross-cut” in the trunk of the tree? Picture it as a chain-saw cutting you out a few books with which to start your own private library.

Question 19

Tag

Answer 19

札

225 (Tree, Fishhook)

The tags you see hanging on trees in public places in Japan are helpful to identify what sort of trees they are. Next time you see one, imagine a bit of wire that fixes the tag to the branch as a large fishhook. Really imagine it, illogically as it is, and you will never have trouble with this kanji again.

Question 20

Calendar

Answer 20

暦

226 (Day, Grove, Cliff)

Look at this character in reverse order, from bottom to top. First we see the primitive for days, an appropriate enough way to begin a calendar. Next we see a grove of trees growing under a clog. The laws of nature bring what they are, the trees would be stunted under such conditions, unless they were strong enough to keep growing upwards until they passed through the layers of rock and soil, right up to the surface. Now imagine that those little boxes marking off days on your wall calendar, you see that very process taking place step by step: 365 or so time-lapse pictures of that grove of trees each month, from January under the cliff to December on top of the cliff. The story is not as complex as it sounds, particularly if you happen to have a calendar nearby and flip through it with this image in mind.

Question 21

Plan

Answer 21

案

227 (Relax, Tree)

Without much effort, the elements of relax… tree suggest a hammock strung between two trees in your backyard, and you stretched out in it, hands folded behind your head, planning something or other. After all, it’s something we all do from time to time: kick up our legs on the nearest piece if furniture and daydream about the best plan of action to take. Be sure to relate the relaxation to the tree, so that you don’t end up with something else in its place (like “legs” or “desk” or “table”).

Question 22

Parch

Answer 22

燥

228 (Fire, Wood, Good)

Parchment, made from animal skins, was the most common form of writing material used until the beginning of the nineteenth century. Who paper took over, a method was devised to make artificial parchment from wood pulp. The fire at the left and in the strong position reminds us of the root word “parch,” since nothing dries, puckers, wrinkles, and scorches quite like fire. And here is how we put it all together. Take a sheet of paper (a “wood-good”), wet it, and hold it over a hearth in your mind’s eye. Now watch as it parches the paper, leaving it with a strange and bumpy surface resembling parchment.

Question 23

Not yet

Answer 23

未

229 (Tree, one)

As the key word suggests, this kanji has to do with something not quite over and done with. More concretely, it shows us a tree that is not yet fully grown. The extra short stroke in the upper branches shows new branches spreading out, leaving one with the feeling that the tree has a ways to go yet before it reaches maturity. In other words, the kanji conveys its meaning pictographically, playing on the earlier pictograph of the tree.

Question 24

Extremity

Answer 24

末

230 (Tree, One)

This character is best learned in connection with that of the previous frame. The first stroke shows a branch that is longer than the main branch, indicating that the tree has reached the extremity of its growth, so that its branches stop spreading and start drooping downwards. Be sure to keep this imagery in mind, to avoid confusing this key word with synonyms that will appear later.

Question 25

Obscure

Answer 25

昧

231 (Sun, Not Yet)

The most obscure ideas are those that the sun of reason has not yet dawned on. Be sure to give the sun a professorial demeanor, complete with spectacles and a pipe.

Question 26

Splash

Answer 26

沫

232 (Water, Extremity)

The splash this kanji refers to is the dash of water against rocks, with all the foam and spray that this creates. If you think of splash in this sense as a wave that has run its full course and reached its extremity, namely the seashore, and if you think of it pictorially in your mind’s eye, this somewhat rare (but oh-so-easy-to-learn) kanji is yours for good.

Question 27

Flavor

Answer 27

味

233 (Mouth, Not yet)

When a tree has not yet finished growing, it produces fruit with a full flavor. When the official taster (the professional mouth to the left) determines that the full flavor has been reached, the tree is pruned back so that it remains permanently not yet grown. A near little agricultural trick and easy way to see the sense of flavor hidden in this character.

Question 28

Younger Sister

Answer 28

妹

234 (Woman, Not yet)

The younger sister in the family is the woman in the family who, like the newest branch in a tree, is not yet old enough or mature enough to do everything the elder sister can do (see FRAME 442).

Question 29

Vermillion

Answer 29

朱

235 (Drop of, Not yet)

That red orange color we call vermillion is found in nature during fall when the leaves lose their sugar and begin to chance color. This kanji depicts the very last leaf in the fall (the drop hung in the first stroke), the leaf that has not yet fallen as it one day must. Look at it’s color-vermillion. (Well, not really. The truth is, vermillion is made from mercuric sulfide, but I’m sure you will agree that autumn leaves are a lot easier to work with).

Question 30

Stocks

Answer 30

株

236 (Tree, Vermillion)

The stocks bought and sold on the market by the tens of millions each day get their name from a comparison to a healthy tree, in which one takes “stock” in the hopes that it will grow and produce more and more trees like itself. Usually good stocks are referred to as “blue chip,” but here we are asked to associate its key word with the color vermilion, perhaps because one can assess the value of a tree from the color of its autumn leaves.

Question 31

Flower

Answer 31

艹

We are not yet equipped with all the pieces necessary to learn the character for flower, so shall have to content ourselves here with the first three strokes, which represent the primitive of the same meaning. Concentrate on the actual “bloom” of the flower, and keep a particular flower in mind. Try a rose, a tulip, or a day, since none of them will have their own kanji. Think about it well, since once you have decided on your flower of choice, you will be using it in rather large number of stories later on.

Question 32

Young

Answer 32

若

237 (Flower, Right)

Here we see a flower held in the right hand. You can imagine yourself in a magic garden where flowers picked with the right hand grant eternal youth; those picked with the left, premature senility. Go ahead, pick one with each hand and watch what happens.

Question 33

Grass

Answer 33

草

238 (Flower, Early)

Perhaps you know the custom of seeding grass randomly in some particular pattern with the flower called the crocus, which blooms for a few days each year in early spring. As the grass begins to turn green after winter has passed, these tiny flowers dot up here and there. Now just look out your window at a patch of grass somewhere and think what a nice idea it would be to have your name spelled out in flowers once as a sort of early harbinger of spring.

Question 34

Suffering

Answer 34

苦

239 (Flower, Old)

The picture of suffering we are given here is that of a flower that has grown old. When a flower ages, it pales and dries up, and probably even suffers. If you think that the plants are incapable of such feelings, then ask yourself why so many people believe that talking to flowers helps them bloom better?

Question 35

Bullying

Answer 35

苛

240 (Flower, Can)

A nosegay of flowers make a nice gift, but if those flowers are poison oak, they can amount to bullying. Be sure to emphasize the word can when you repeat this little phrase to yourself.

Question 36

Tolerant

Answer 36

寛

241 (House, Flower, See)

The house of flowers or “hothouse” has become a metaphor for a narrow-minded, biased, and intolerant attitude distrustful of change. Tolerance, in contrast, is open-minded and welcomes novelty. The way to encourage tolerance in those who lack it is first to have them see through their own hothouse attitudes, which is the very counsel we are given in this last kanji.

Question 37

Dilute

Answer 37

薄

242 (Water, Flower, Acupuncturist)

Take a good look at this kanji: the “strong” element here is really the flower, not the water as you thought on first glance. To the right is the acupuncturist from FRAME 48. Taking the keyword to connote diluting the vital humors of the body, we can imagine our acupuncturist performing his task with flowers in place of needles, and using their hallow stems to pipe water into the body of the patient.

Question 38

Leaf

Answer 38

葉

243 (Flower, Generation, Tree)

Three elements given here: flower… generation… tree. This first and last seem logical enough, since it is the leaf that feeds the flowers on a tree. The element for generation interposed between the two suggests that the movement of tree from one generation to the next is like it’s “turning a new leaf.”

Question 39

Graveyard

Answer 39

莫

(Flower, Sun, St. Bernard)

The element shown here should be taken to represent a graveyard. Gone are the cobwebs and gnarled trees, the tilted headstones and dark, moonless nights that used to scare the wits out of our childhood imaginations. Instead, we see brightly colored flowers placed before tombstones, the sun shining gloriously overhead, and a cuddle St. Bernard sitting at the gate keeping watch.

Question 40

Imitation

Answer 40

模

244 (Tree, Graveyard)

Ah, but haven’t modern graveyards become a parody of their ancestors! The flowers are plastic, the writing on the stones unimaginative and cold, and the whole thing looks more like a marble orchard that a right and proper graveyard. This kanji continues the modernization trend by picturing imitation trees in the graveyard. But of course, how convenient! They don’t need pruning or fertilizing, their leaves don’t fall, and they remain the same color all year long.

Question 41

Vague

Answer 41

漠

245 (Water, Graveyard)

Think of the keyword as having something to do with something viewed through a haze, or in the twilight and from a distance, so that only its outlines are vaguely discernible. Now we are back again to the essence of the true graveyard. The water may be taken as a sound of waves dashing up against rocks or the dripping of moisture on cold rock-anything the helps you associate vagueness with the graveyard and keep it distinct from the imitation we met in the last frame.

How about having the water suggest the heavy moist air which creates the misty haze in the graveyard.

Question 42

Grave

Answer 42

墓

246 (Graveyard, Soil)

The mounds of soil with crude wooden crosses suggest those boot-hill graves we all know from cowboy lore. The only odd thing about this kanji is that soil comes under the graveyard, rather than to it’s left as we might expect. Just think of the bodies as “lying under boot-hill” if you have any trouble.

By the way, this is not the first time, nor will it be the last, that we learn a kanji whose keyword is the same, or almost the same, as a primitive element it is based on, nut whose shape differs somewhat. There is no cause to worry. By using primitives in a variety of other characters, as we have done here, the confusion will be averted as a matter of course. In most cases, as here, the primitive element is taken from part of the fuller kanji.

Question 43

Livelihood

Answer 43

暮

247 (Graveyard, Day)

Imagine that you have chosen the occupation of the keeper of a graveyard and spend your days tending to other’s deadwood in order to make your means of livelihood.

Question 44

Membrane

Answer 44

膜

248 (part of the Body, Graveyard)

The part of the body first affected by a stroll through a haunted graveyard is the skin, which gets goose bumps. But we save the word “skin” for another kanji, and use the odd word “membrane” here. Think of being so scared through and through that the goose flesh moves from outside in, giving you goose membranes.

Question 45

Seedling

Answer 45

苗

249 (Flower, Rice Field)

To avoid confusion with the image of rice seedlings to appear later, we shall take the seedlings out of their agricultural setting in the rice fields and into the frame of Brave New World surgery, where “ideas” or “values” are bring implanted into brains like seedlings to insure a harmonious society. Then you need only imagine them taking root and breaking out into flower right through the top of the skills of people walking around on the streets.