Blog Archives
Kanji Disassembled #13: ‘Rest’
I’ve been craving for a holiday recently. An *extended* quality time that consists of just me and myself and not just a couple day-off on a weekend. You see, there are somethings that I would like to do and discover and they were rather infeasible to do in the office, or in the after-hours when I usually read and sleeping away on a terrible evening TVs, or in the weekends when I usually slouched away playing games to let-off the weariness I had from the office all week.
In relation to “holiday”, this week kanji is a very simple one. It usually (and quite often according to my personal observation) used to denotes that a store is closed. But, the official meaning is “rest” or in Japan, やすみ。
Two symbols, and they are the symbol for “person” and “tree”, respectively from left-to-right. It doesn’t take a genius to see that a person, sits under a tree easily represents “a farmer – or a person – resting after a day of hard work in the field under the shade of a tree” It helps to remember that kanji was invented in the time when farmers are one of the most prominent occupation in the society.
I was kinda lazy and so this week’s kanji and the overall quality of the ‘disassemblement’ is rather cheating.
Other Posts From: April 2009
- Kanji Disassembled #12: ‘Movies’ It’s a no secret that I have on some level, an affection toward films and so, for this week’s Kanji column, I decided to do Kanji for “film” or “movies” (Jap.えいが) The kanji for this word consists of a compound of two kanjis. The first one, is the kanji for “reflect” The left element of [...] »
- Kanji Disassembled #11: ‘Election’ Tomorrow is an election day here in Indonesia and it makes me a bit wondering about how does the “election” represented in Kanji. Upon dictionary search in tangorin.com, there are actually several ways to write this word in Kanji. However, according to my Oxford dictionary, this is how you write “election” in Kanji proper. The [...] »
- Kanji Disassembled #10: ‘Alright’ Doubtless, if you’re a fan of anime, you’re going to hear this word a lot. It was so often appears that if you don’t notice it, then simply, you aren’t eligible to call yourself an anime fan. It’s “daijoubu” or often translated as “Alright” as in, “daijoubu ka?” (Jap.大丈夫か？) or “Are you alright?” or “Are [...] »
- Kanji Disassembled #9: ‘Fight’ This week’s kanji is another of my favorite kanji. Along with kanji for “love”, these two might well be the first two kanjis I learned to memorize and write with perfection in each and every stroke. It’s the kanji for “war”, “fight”, or any other words that brought forth image of men trading blows with [...] »
- Kanji Disassembled #8: ‘Green’ Before I met my wife, when I was asked about “what is your favorite color?” I’d stared blankly at a point approximately an inch in front of my brow for a fraction of second before answering which of course, forgo the definition of a “favorite” in the first place. And my answer is always between [...] »
- Kanji Disassembled #7: ‘Kanji’ This week’s Kanji Disassembled is about the word ‘Kanji’ itself. As everyone who has the exposure to the Japanese language should be aware of, Kanji is a writing system adopted from China. When or how, doesn’t really matter, unless you’re a historian (and I’m not one), but one fact remains intact, somehow during the inception [...] »
- Kanji Disassembled #6: ‘Cardinal Points’ Whoever said that video games are only for kids needs to gets a reality check. Nowadays, if we talk about games (objects) or gamers (subjects), perhaps kudos to this cute little thing called Wii from Nintendo, we usually divides the discussion topic into two. Are you casual? Or are you hardcore? While it is true [...] »
- Kanji Disassembled #5: ‘Love’ This week’s kanji is one of the very first kanji I memorized and learned to write in a perfection. And I never forget about it and about how and whence the strokes of this kanji went. It’s a kanji for “love” 愛 (Jap. あい|Ai). From top to bottom, the kanji would goes like this, “finger” [...] »
- Kanji Disassembled #4: ‘to Sketch’ This week’s Kanji Disassembled is a word that is tightly related to comics or more correctly, mangas as they were usually called by us. In my opinion, they’re among the best known export assets from Japan and its also a huge industry. I dare to say that most of us, here in Indonesia, are susceptible [...] »