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How Chinese Characters Carry Meaning
An introduction to how Chinese characters are built from pictures, ideas and sound clues, and why they are so often used in blessings, calligraphy and art.
Ideas and Meaning
Meaningful Characters
What individual characters stand for.
The Cultural Significance of the Chinese Character for Courage
The character yong (courage), its two parts, and how Confucian texts, idioms and popular stories treat bravery as a virtue that must be joined to a sense of what is right.
The Cultural Significance of the Chinese Character for Harmony
The written form of he (harmony): its grain and mouth components, other readings, common phrases, palace hall names and how the character looks in calligraphy.
The Cultural Significance of the Chinese Character for Loyalty
The character zhong (loyalty), built from middle over heart, and how early moral texts and later history shaped ideas of faithfulness to others and to rulers.
The Cultural Significance of the Chinese Character for Prosperity
Characters for wealth and prosperity such as cai and fu, their shell and roof parts, and where they appear in new year greetings, shop signs and decoration.
The Cultural Significance of the Chinese Character for Wisdom
The character zhi (wisdom), built from the character for knowing over the sun, and its place in classical writing about learning, judgment and the limits of knowledge.
The Significance of the Chinese Character for Good Fortune
The fu character for good fortune: its altar and full-jar parts, why it is hung upside down at the new year, and its use on doors, windows and paper cuttings.
The Significance of the Chinese Character for Longevity
The shou character for long life: its complex traditional form, round and patterned decorative versions, and its role in birthday greetings, gifts and art.
The Significance of the Chinese Character for Love
How the character ai (love) is written in traditional and simplified forms, and how love is expressed in poems, sayings and the everyday speech of Chinese families.
The Significance of the Chinese Character for Patience
The character ren (patience, endurance): a blade over a heart, the sayings built on it, stories of restraint and the Buddhist and Confucian ideas behind enduring.
The Significance of the Chinese Character for Peace
The character an (peace, safety), with its roof and woman parts, plus the wishes, place names and New Year customs built around ping'an and related words.
The Significance of the Chinese Character for Virtue
The character de (virtue, moral character): its parts, its early links to rulers and Heaven, how Confucian and Daoist writers used it, and its modern compounds.
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