RTK Lesson 9 Flashcards
Ri (4KM)
里
185 (Rice Field, Land)
That’s right - a ri. Don’t bother looking it up in your English dictionary; it’s a Japanese word for measuring distances. One ri is about 4 kilometers or 2.5 miles. The kanji depicts how the measure came to be used. Atop we see the rice field, and below the element for land. Those four sections you see in rice field (and which we made mention when we first introduced the character in frame 14) are actually measurements of land, much the same as farm-sections in the United States have given us the notion of “country mile.” The land division based on a rice field is called a ri.
*To get a more concrete primitive meaning for this kanji, we shall refer to it as a computer, a meaning derived from the kanji for logic, which we will meet in Lesson 12.
Black
黒
186 (Computer, Fire)
Like most things electrical, a computer, too, can overheat. Just imagine flames pouring out of it and charring the keyboard, the monitor, and your desk a sooty black color.
Black Ink
墨
187 (Black, Dirt)
Besides the meaning black ink, this kanji also appears in the word for an inked string that is pulled taut and snapped to mark a surface, much the same as one might used a chalked string. Here is is used to mark off the dirt with black lines for a football game (played, I presume on a white field).
Carp
鯉
188 (Fish, Computer)
These are the same carp you see in Japanese “Carp Streamers.” Only here we find a small home computer or two strung on the line by a father anxious for his son not only to have the courage and determination of a carp swimming upstream, but also the efficiency and memory of a computer. Ugh.
Quantity
量
189 (Nightbreak, Ri)
Think of quantity as having to do with measuring time and distance, and the rest is simple; you have a quantity of day that beings in the new day that begins with nightbreak, and quantity of distance in the rural ri.
Rin
厘
190 (Cliff, Ri)
No doubt you will find it in your heart to forgive me for introducing another Japanese word on you in this frame. It is not the last time it will happen in this book, but I can assure you they are only used when absolutely necessary.
One Rin is equal to about 1/1000 of a yen-or rather was worth that much when it still made economic sense to mint them. While inflation took its tool on this kanji as a monetary unit, it survived with the not at all surprising sense of something “very, very tiny.”
The kanji shows a cliff with a computer under it, apparently because it has been pushed over the abyss by someone fed up with the thing. The total market value of one home computer has fallen over rock and bramble for several hundred feet: about one rin!
Bury
埋
191 (Ground, Computer)
When we speak of burying something (or someone, for that matter), we usually mean putting them under the ground. Only here, we are burying our beloved computer that has served us so well these past few years. Behind us the choir chants “Dis irae, dies ill” and there is much wailing and grief among the bystanders as they pass by to shovel a little dirt into what will be the final resting place. R.I.P.
Hood
冂
In addition to th basic meaning of hood, this shape can be used for a glass canopy, such as that used to serve “pheasant under glass.” Note its difference from the element for wind: thee second stroke is hooked inwards here. To help remember this detail, think of the wind as blowing “out” and a glass canopy as keeping something “in.” Among the related images suggested by this primitive area: a monk’s cowl, a riding hood, a helmet, and an automobile hood.
Same
同
192 (Hood, One, Mouth)
The primitives given are one and mouth under a hood.Take the key word to connote sameness that characterizes the life of a community of monks. They all have the same habits, including the “habit” they wear on their backs. Here we see the monks cowl, drawn over the eyes so that all you can see when you look at him is a month. But since monks also speak their prayers in common, it is but a short step to think of one mouth under a hood as the kanji for the sameness of monastic life.
*As a primitive, this Kanji will mean monks dressed in a common habit.
Den
洞
193 (Water, Same)
The key word dnnrefers to an animal lair hallowed out in the side of a mountain. Now if we keep the image for monastic life as an image for same, we ca pictures a den of wild beasts dressed up in habits and living the common life in a mountain cavern. To bring the lamenter of water we only need to give them a puddle in the center of the cavern to focus all of their pious energy.
Trunk
洞
194 (Part of the Body, Same)
The word trunk refers to the part of the body that is left when you have “truncated” all the limbs. I can hardly think of any reason for doing so, unless one were lumberjacking corpses and needed to have them all properly pruned and the same so they could be floated downstream without causing a body-jam.
Yonder
向
195 (Drop of, Helmet, Mouth)
Something referred to as “over yonder” is usually far off in the distance and barely within sight-like a wee drop in the distance-and is usually an expression used in giving directions or pointing something out. Hence this Kanji begins with a drop. Then we find a sort of transparent helmet with no eyes or nose, but only a prominent mouth under it, obviously an extraterrestrial. And what is it jabbering on about with its mouth open like that? Why, about his spaceship way over yonder with its fuel tank on empty.
Esteem
尚
196 (Little, Glass Canopy, Mouth)
Above we see the primitive for little attached to one of those glass canopies you might use to display a family heirloom. The littleness is important, because what is in fact on display is a shrunken, stuffed, and mounted mouth of an esteemed ancestor. We may be used to esteeming words our forebears leave behind, but we also esteem the very most that spoke them. I leave it to you to imagine a suitable place in your room for displaying such an unusual conversation piece.
House
宀
This extremely useful primitive element depicts the roof of a house. You can see the chimney at the top and the eaves on either side without much trouble. It is a “crown” element, which means that it is invariably set atop other things. Examples follow immediately.
Character
字
197 (House, Child)
Here is the character for character itself. Not just kanji, but any character from hieroglyphics to Sanskrit to our own Roman alphabet. It shows us simply a child in a house. But let us take advantage of the double meaning of the key word to note that just as a child is born to a Japanese house given characters for a name, so it is also stamped with the character of those who raise it form infancy on.
Guard
守
198 (House, Glue)
The notion of guarding something easily brings to mind the image of someone stranding guard, like the royal soldiers in front of Buckingham Palace or the Pope’s Swiss Guard. The whole idea of hiring guards is that they should stick like glue to your house to protect it from unwanted prowlers. So go ahead and glue a guard to your house in imagination.
Perfect
完
199 (House, Beginning)
In order not to confuse the key word perfect with others nearly synonymous in meaning, pull it apart to have a look at its native Latin roots. Per-factum suggests something so “thoroughly made or done” that nothing more needs to be added to it. Now look at the kanji, which does something similar. We see a house that has been made perfectly from its beginnings in the foundation to the roof on the top. Now return to FRAME 101 and make sure not to confuse this key word with the kanji for complete.
Proclaim
宣
200 (House, Span)
Under the primitive for house we meet the kanji for span. Think of the key word in its religious sense of missionary preaching: “Proclaiming the good news to all nations” and “shouting it from the housetops.” That should be enough to help you remember this simple kanji, used in fact both for traditional missionary work as well as for one of its contemporary replacements: advertising.
Wee Hours
宵
201 (House, Candle)
As the key word hints, the kanji in this frame refers to the late evening or early morning hours, well after one should be in bed asleep. It does this by picturing a house with a candle in it. The reason this is obvious: whoever is living there is “burning the candle at both ends,” and working night after night into the wee hours.
