Kanji Disassembled #3: ‘Rain’

Jakarta was heavily clouded, soaked wet and drenched in rain for the last several days, so it is quite appropriate that for this week’s Kanji Disassembled, I took the kanji character for “rain.”

Just like any other kanji that depicted the nature’s element, the kanji for “rain” (Jap. 雨｜あめ – Ame) left almost no room for imagination. The horizontal stroke at the top position is representable as sky, the three downward vertical strokes also is quite an easy semblance to cloud, and finally the four ink drop situated around the center is easily recognizable as a rain-drop. Really, you can’t get easier than this.

This kanji as I’ve mentioned earlier, is a prominent example to show how kanjis are sometimes takes an object as it really looks in a real life. A pictograph is you will. Another easy example for this kind of pictograph is the kanji character for “mountain” (Jap. 山｜やま – Yama) which is distinguishable for its resemblance to a three peaked mountain, and “river” (Jap. 川｜かわ – Kawa) which is distinguishable for its resemblance to a river stream.

Further, as shown by the image above, the kanji for “rain” could be stretched further to (2) “thunder” (Jap. かみなり – Kaminari) and (3) “electricity” (Jap. でん（き）- Den(ki)) by simply adding some elements under it. It is easy to spot a kanji element for “rain” above the kanji number two and number three which stands for “thunder” and “electricity” respectively. The kanji number two (“thunder”) consists of kanji for “rain” and a “rice paddy” or “rice field” below it. I took a liberty to assume that everyone is familiar with a lightning streak that split the cloud which usually followed by a thunderous bang shortly afterward. It is easy to observe that more often than not, you got to sit at the best seat in the house of the opera of thunderstorm when you’re in some kind of a vast field stretched far and wide into horizons. And where else could you be in a vast field that stretched into horizons than in a “rife field?” Therefore, adding a simple kanji for “rice field” below a “rain”, could net you a “thunder.”

From the kanji of “thunder”, one could stretch another step further to “electricity” by adding a stroke at the bottom. Thunder and electricity has a pretty close kinship that sometimes the two symbol could be interchangeable. For instance, the sister company of the company I worked for, is happened to be the sole electricity provider in the nation and guess what their company logo looks like? A universal symbol of thunder. For the sake of disassembling, I personally took this kanji as a “thunder-with-a-bottom-stroke” Going a bit sci-fi, I further imagined this kanji as “a mechanism to catch a thunder‘s energy that flashes on a rice field and then turned them into an electrical energy.” and there I have a kanji for “electricity.”

Further yet again, the kanji for electricity is quite useful in making several other kanjis. Add a kanji for “car” behind it and you’ve got yourself a kanji for “train.” Add a kanji for “speak” behind it and you’ve got yourself a kanji for “telephone.” Add a kanji for “child” and you’ve got yourself a kanji for “electronic” (as in “small – circuit – electricity”). Further adding a kanji for mail to these compound and you’ve got yourself a kanji for “e-mail.” Pretty useful, I’d say.