福

During Chinese New Year holiday, you might have seen Chinese families put up couplets and 福 on their main doors to celebrate their most important holiday in a year.

Today we move on to explain what 福, which Chinese like the most, means and represents.

 As we learned with 祝 at https://xiongzou.blogspot.com/2020/05/blog-post_23.html , left hand part of 福: 礻is Chinese Radical form of 示, which is the altar for worshiping, with details at https://xiongzou.blogspot.com/2020/04/blog-post_26.html. So we know that 福 should be related to worshiping gods.

Then what does right hand part of 福: 畐 mean? 畐 seems to be composed of 一口田. Does 福 mean to pray to gods for having a piece of farm land? With such questions in mind, let us examine the evolution history of 福 to understand 福 better:

Evolution history of 福

Now we can see clearly from ancient scripts of 福 that its right hand side is the drawing of a wine vessel. It is particularly obvious with in and in . And during Bronze Script era, the vessel was simplified and transferred into , which was further simplified into 畐 in Seal Script. 

Below is a typical traditional wine vessel used in ancient China:

Examining carefully that we can see there is actually two hands offering onto altar. In 福's evolution process, the was simplified away.

福 is now obvious to have original meaning of offering wine to worship gods.

so 福 contains all the blessings, goodness and fortunes we pray to gods to grant us. To be more specific: Healthy, Wealthy, Safety and Peace. for example 福气.

And wine is brewed from rice. If an ancient Chinese family had extra rice to brew wine and not only that, they had wine reserved to offer to gods,  it was a clear sign of blessing that this family got a bumper harvest. for example 祝福.

That is all for 福, time to enjoy a Chinese art with 福 inside:

 

福

亏 | 虧

Today we move on to a character related to 乎 and 兮 which we have learnt before - 亏, whose Traditional Chinese character is a quite complicated: 虧.

We know that 乎 means shout out aloud, while 兮 is used to mean sigh softly. 亏 with a dash above ㄎis believed to mean no sound can be made.

Regarding its Traditional counterpart - 虧, it is believed that 虧 was created during era of Qin dynasty as there is no 虧 found in neither Oracle scripts nor Bronze scripts. 

We can see that 虧 is composed of two parts: 雐 and 亏, where 雐 is used to describe a bird exists only in ancient Chinese fairy-tells. Looking at 雐 carefully, with its upper part as 虍 and lower part as 隹, 雐 is a bird (隹) with a head as that of a tiger (虎). To me, 雐 should be originated from Owl whose Chinese name is 猫头鹰. 猫头鹰 is literally cat-head eagle. When Owl flies, there is too little sound to be heard by its prey. I believe Chinese ancestors noticed such characteristics of Owl and added 雐 to 亏 to emphasize the meaning of soundless.

Owl - 猫头鹰

So 亏 | 虧 contains the meaning of lost of sound, which was extended to mean lost / lose. for example 亏本.

It is fortunate for Owl to make no sound in catching its prey,  亏 | 虧 contains the meaning of lucky or fortunate. for example: 多亏你提醒.

As Owl is a symbol of ominous in Chinese culture, what is good for Owl is not good for us. 亏 | 虧 is thus also used as irony to mean reprimand or ridicule: 亏你做的出来.

That is all for 亏 | 虧, time to enjoy a Chinese calligraphy with 亏 | 虧 inside:

吃亏是福

雀

Today we move on to another Pictogram character 雀. 

At the first glance, its top part is an obvious Chinese character 少, which we have learnt at https://xiongzou.blogspot.com/2016/01/learn-one-chinese-character-day_22.html . 少 means less or small.

Bottom part of 雀 is unknown to us. We will need the help of its ancient scripts:

雀evolution history

 
Now we can clearly see that bottom part of its Oracle Scripts and is drawing of a bird (details can be found at https://xiongzou.blogspot.com/2017/12/learn-one-chinese-character-day_18.html). so and is to mean small bird, like sparrow. 

Its Bronze Script and Seal Script and Clerical Script were slowly simplified to our current writing form: 雀.

雀 means small bird. for example: 麻雀.

Now it is time to enjoy a Chinese calligraphy with 雀 inside:

鸣蝉移树流余响，斗雀追风坠细翎。

虎

 Chinese New Year 2022 is year of tiger. Today we divert our path to learn tiger in Chinese: 虎.

Modern character of 虎 does not give us much hint why it means tiger. As usual its ancient scripts will help here:

evolution history of 虎

As we can see from above table how 虎 evolved from its vivid drawing, , with the details of special characteristics of a tiger:

a. big mouth with sharp teeth;

b. stripes on its body;

c. powerful claws;

d. long tail;

to a more abstract  in Bronze script era, and further simplified in Seal script  and finally fixed in Clerical script: .

虎

so 虎 means tiger. For example: 老虎.

With extended meanings, 虎 can be used to describe as dangerous as close to a tiger: 虎口.

And 虎 can also be used to describe a person as mighty and brave as a tiger. For example: 虎将. 

That is all for 虎. I wish everybody a Prosperous Chinese New Year of Tiger | 虎年大吉:

福虎迎春

兮

We have learnt 乎 before and now we are going to examine its close relatives: 兮. From their modern form, we probably would not be able to tell how close they are, but if we compare their Oracle scripts, it will become obvious.

Oracle script of 乎: . Detailed explanation of 乎 can be found at https://xiongzou.blogspot.com/2020/07/blog-post.html 

Oracle script of 兮: 

We know that of is to represent air flow that produces load sound. Now comparing  with , we can tell that should be drawn to represent a sound that is lower than .

Before we move on to conclusion, let us examine 兮's evolution history:

evolution history of 兮

兮 means to produce a lower sound than 乎, probably a sound at the level of a sigh. normally used as a modal particle per Chinese grammar, like 乎.

That is all for 兮, time to enjoy a Chinese calligraphy with it inside:

归去来辞：归去来兮，田园将芜胡不归，既自以。。。

麦 | 麥

 We have just completed our learning of first full sentence of 《论语》: 学而时习之，不亦说乎？有朋自远方来，不亦乐乎？人不知而不愠，不亦君子乎？

Let us take some time to go back to the Chinese characters we have learnt during the journey so that we can pick up a few low-hanging fruits from the characters tree.

today we are examining 麦 | 麥, which is related to 来 | 來. Their Traditional versions 麥 and 來 clearly represented the relationship: an extra  (radical 夊) has been added to bottom of 来 | 來. Recall what we have learnt with character 各 at https://xiongzou.blogspot.com/2016/05/5-learn-one-chinese-character-day.html, we knew already that 夊 has the meaning of coming to. 来 | 來 originally is the drawing of a wheat, which has been borrowed to represent the meaning of to come / to arrive. Chinese ancestors then added the foot  (radical 夊) to emphasize the fact that 麦 | 麥 is the wheat that comes from foreign countries or wheat is a blessing coming from heaven.

To conclude, 麦 | 麥 means wheat.

We can examine its ancient scripts to have a better understanding:

evolution history of 麦 | 麥

That is all for 麦 | 麥 and time to enjoy a Chinese calligraphy with it inside:

荆州麦熟茧成蛾，缲丝忆君头绪多。

Meaning of 人不知而不愠，不亦君子乎？

We have prepared well for understanding the meaning of the third sentence of the most important classic of Confucianism： 《论语》: 人不知而不愠，不亦君子乎？ To start, we will review the meaning of each Chinese character of it.

人: https://xiongzou.blogspot.com/2011/12/learn-one-chinese-character-day.html
It is drawing of a person.

不: https://xiongzou.blogspot.com/2019/09/blog-post_22.html
It means not.

知: https://xiongzou.blogspot.com/2021/09/blog-post.html 
It is composed of 矢 and 口, which represents the meaning of some expert teaching / sharing knowledge of archery and warring weapon. And here it is used to mean knowing / understanding. 

而: https://xiongzou.blogspot.com/2019/08/blog-post.html
It is a drawing of a lot of long beard, which represents the relationship of equality or similarity of things it connects.

不: https://xiongzou.blogspot.com/2019/09/blog-post_22.html
It means not.

愠 | 慍: https://xiongzou.blogspot.com/2021/11/blog-post.html

It represents warming / heating up the heart, and is used to mean being angry or indignant.

不: https://xiongzou.blogspot.com/2019/09/blog-post_22.html

It means not.

亦: https://xiongzou.blogspot.com/2019/10/blog-post_28.html
It means same, as well or too.

君: https://xiongzou.blogspot.com/2019/02/learn-one-chinese-character-day_11.html

It is originally represent the person who holding the power and giving orders, which is eventually used to mean people with great heart or noble person.

子: https://xiongzou.blogspot.com/2011/12/learn-one-chinese-character-day_26.html

It is used to mean baby mostly, and it is used to mean Love and Respect especially as it is after 君 here.

乎: https://xiongzou.blogspot.com/2020/07/blog-post.html

It means shout loudly, or it can be understood as modal particle.

Before you check out our answer below, please take the last chance to try to reason the meaning of the sentence "人不知而不愠，不亦君子乎？" yourself.

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And here we go the answer:

Modern Chinese first: "不被人了解而不生气，这不就是君子吗？"

English next: "If a person can keep calm and patient while he is being misunderstood, is not he a noble gentleman?"

If you have a different mother tongue, you are welcome to provide translation for your own mother tongue. And of course if you have different translation for modern Chinese or English, you are welcome to provide your version as well.

That is all for today, let us enjoy again another Chinese calligraphy of "不知而不愠，不亦君子乎"

学而时习之，不亦说乎？有朋自远方来，不亦乐乎？人不知而不愠，不亦君子乎?

愠 | 慍

 After learning 温 | 溫, we now should be able to guess the meaning of our character today: 愠 | 慍, which is composed of 忄and 昷. 

We have known that忄means heart (心), whose details can be found at https://xiongzou.blogspot.com/2015/11/learn-one-chinese-character-day_20.html. And 昷 has the meaning of warming / heating up. 

Thus忄and 昷 together have the aggregated meaning of warming / heating up the heart, which logically represents "burning angry within the heart".

Let us examine the evolution history of 温 | 溫 to understand it better:

evolution history of 愠

From its Bronze script, we can tell that 愠 used to be same character as 昷, eventually Chinese ancestors added heart to 昷 to emphasize that 愠 is related to feelings.

愠 | 慍 means angry or indignant as adj, and resent or become angry as verb.

That is all for 愠 | 慍, time to enjoy a Chinese calligraphy with 愠 | 慍 inside:

参谋蜀耆英，棠阴满三郡。开怀接儿辈，色不见喜愠。
清朝贵老成，故家多黄训。佳气引春帆，长安天日近。