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 this kanji is noticeable as the “sun” It’s obviously everywhere, also acts as a kanji for “day” and “Sunday” in its own, it should come naturally as the “sun” if you have spent some time fiddling with kanji. However, on this kanji, in relation to its overall meaning as “reflect”, I’d like to take the meaning of this symbol to its very element which is “light” (as oppose to “dark”). The second symbol from this kanji is the less familiar symbol for “center” Dissected, I see this kanji as a combination between a kanji for human (人) and a box (口), positioned at such where the human part situated inside and around the “center” of the box. Now, combining this “sun” or “light” with “center”, and a bit of imagination stretching, as usual, the word “reflect” will come to mind as when there’s a “light” in a room (box) with a human in the center, the only thing that is certain to appear is the shadow as the “reflection” of the light.

The second kanji, is often used as “brush-stroke” as well as artistic representations such as complete paintings. Moreover, in various kanji lesson book, or dictionary, this kanji is used to show how many strokes a particular kanji has (for example, this very kanji is listed under 8画 to show that this kanji is written with 8 strokes.

Finally, combining the two, “reflect” and “stroke”, we had the definition of “movies” Huh? Well, if it’s not yet apparent, here’s my story to combine the two. My first (and so far, only) trip to the projector room of a movie theater is happen in the late 80′s and I had taken a liberty to assume that everyone knows or at least aware of how the projector room worked (or at least, the old ones like one I saw in the 80′s). A series of static images (complete paintings, brush-stroke) scanned through this project with a strong light shining through it, through a series of lens, until it was projected (reflected) to the big white screen up ahead for the pleasure of many in attendance.