Amazing Chinese Characters (605) Image - 像

 The big seal script of character Image is 

The left is character Person (Post 37), the right is character Elephant (Post 128). 

Elephants lived in China thousands years ago, people call it as Yellow River Elephant because they lived in the Yellow River area. As the weather changed, forest disappeared in north China, so elephants disappeared in north China and most south China. Small number of elephants live in Yunnan, near Burma.

When elephants disappeared from most of China, many people couldn't see elephant, but listened the animal by legends, they could only imagine elephant. So character Elephant means "similar to", "look like", not direct "be". It forms words with other characters to express anything with your imagination, e.g. “想象“－imagine, "抽象“ －abstract. Anyway, something you couldn't see, but you could imagine by the information you heard, which is Thinking-Elephant - 想象, imagining the elephant.

The image from imagination was formed in our mind, in 3500+ years ago, there was no paper, it is very difficult for people to draw the images on bamboo slips. However, in Han Dynasty, people knew to make paper, then they could draw the images in their mind on paper, they had a physical media with image. They created character Image as above to present it. All pictures, paintings, drawings could be presented by the character.

The small seal script of character Image is

The left is character Person, the right is character Elephant.

The clerical script of character Image is

The left is Radical Person, the right is character Elephant.

The Pinyin of character 像 is Xiang4, same as character Elephant (象).

Amazing Chinese characters (604) Young - 幼

 The shell bone script of character Young is

The top is character Power or Strength (Post 168), which is a plow. Hanging on the plow is character Give (Post 597), which is spider silk. Young kids are very weak, their strength is like spider silk, couldn't hold anything at all. 

The bronze script of character Young is 

The plow is across the spider silk, or both sides of plow have spider silk.

The small seal script of character Young is

The spider silk is on the left, the plow is on the right.

The clerical script of character Young is 

The left is character Youngest (Post 407), the right is character Power or Strength. 

The Pinyin of character Young is You4.

幼 means very young, normally from 1 year baby to 6 years old, occasionally could go 12.  

Amazing Chinese Characters (603) Lodging - 宿

The shell bone script of character Lodging is

The out contour is a house, the left in the house is a Person (Post 37), the right is a sleep bamboo mat. A person is sleeping on a bamboo mat in a house, which is Lodging for night. 

The bronze script of character Lodging is 

Similar to shell bone script except the bamboo mat is on left, and person is on the right now.

The small seal script of character Lodging is

The person is on left, and right is not like a bamboo mat anymore. I don't know why it changed to that.

The clerical script of character Lodging is

The top is called Radical Treasure Cover, meaning the roof of a house. Under it, left is Radical Person, the right is character One Hundred, which has nothing to do with bamboo mat. No idea why it is here.

The pinyin of character 宿 is Su4.

宿 means a house for people to sleep over night: lodge + sleep + night. It would not be 宿 if any one is missing. That is "lodge + sleep", "lodge + night", "Sleep + night", are not  宿。The home house, the dormitory, the hotel, are 宿. The car where people take a nap is not 宿“.

Amazing Chinese Characters (602) Neighborhood - 邻（鄰）

  The big seal script of character Neighborhood is

The top is character Hot (Post 185), which contains two character Fire (Post 26)

The bottom are two feet. 

The character means that the place where is bonfire is just walking distance, which of course is the neighborhood in the ancient time when people shared the bonfire.

The small seal script of character Neighborhood is

The left is similar to big seal script, the right is character Village (Post 561), where people reside in. 

The clerical script of character Neighborhood is

The left top is character Rice - 米 (Post 163), which is totally wrong from the original meaning. It may look like a little bit the character Hot - 炎? The right part is called Right Ear Radical, meaning place where people reside.

The traditional song typeface of character Neighborhood is 

Same as clerical script.

The simplified song typeface of character Neighborhood is

The left is character Order - 令 (Post 152), nothing to do with neighborhood, only pronunciation is same. This is very bad simplification.

The Pinyin of character Neighborhood is Lin3.

Amazing Chinese Characters (601) Laborer - 巴

 The shell bone script of character Laborer is

It is said that there were people with many hands who lived in Sichuan area where many high mountains. They could climb mountain quickly, they are very handy, the best laborers.

The big seal script of character Laborer is

We can see a person kneeling down, bending back, lowing head. But the arm with many hands disappeared, the reason may be the character presents real person, not imaginary person.

The small seal script of character Laborer is

Similar to big seal script.

The clerical script of character Laborer is

Not like the older scripts. I can't figure out how it changed to this form.

The Pinyin of character Laborer is Ba1.

The character is not used for Laborer anymore now but the meaning is implied in compound character with it, and the proverbs containing it. 

Amazing Chinese Characters (600) Relax - 舒

 The big seal script of character Relax is

The left is character Residence (Post 599), the right is character Give (Post 597), here means silkworm silk. People who live in a small house in a remote area, and raise silkworm to produce silk, feel relaxed. Another possible is that the character Give means spider net here. Spider net means remote area, quiet, if you live in a small house there, you feel relaxed. I prefer the latter explanation.

The small seal script of character Relax is

Similar to its big seal script.

The clerical script of character Relax is

The left is character Residence, the rifer is character Give.

The Pinyin of character Relax is Shu1.

 

舒 also means Comfortable.

Amazing Chinese Characters (599) Residence - 舍 and Abandon - 捨

The bronze script of character Residence is

The top triangle is the roof of hut or shed, the bottom is a semi basement, the middle is the main beam and support beams. The semi basement style residence is to avoid building walls, therefore, it is much easier to build the residence in the ancient time.

The big seal script of character Residence is 

Similar to bronze script. 

The small seal script of character Residence is 

Similar to older scripts.

The clerical script of character Residence is 

Similar to older scripts, except the middle part, the support beams are horizontal, not like support beam anymore. 

The Pinyin of character Residence - 舍 is She4.

The small seal script of character Abandon is

In the ancient time, people hunt wild animal for living. They moved a lot, often abandoned the hut or shed they lived. There are no its shell bone, bronze, big seal scripts, which means that the character was created much later than character 舍. 

The clerical script of character Abandon is

Similar to its small seal script. 

The Pinyin of character 捨 is She3.

捨 also meaning Giving, normally giving help to poor people. 

From the discussion above, we know that 舍 and 捨 are different characters, 舍 was created much earlier than 捨. However, in the simplified song typeface, character 捨 is abandoned, its meaning is merged into character 舍, which reduced one character but makes more confusing. 

First, the pronunciation, before merge, 舍 is pronounced as She4, 捨 is pronounced as She3, even though very close but people could distinguish. After merge, 捨 is abandoned, 舍 is pronounced She3, and She4. You have to pronounce them according to the meaning, "Abandon" should be She3, Residence should be She4. 

Second, it is not easy sometimes to judge where it means Abandon, and where it means Residence. 

Third, right now people consider 捨 is traditional song typeface of 舍, which is wrong. Both 捨 and 舍 are traditional characters, 舍 was created much earlier than 捨. But people wrongly think that in the past, there was only 捨, after simplification experts simplified 捨 to 舍, which is absolutely WRONG!.

This simplification is very bad. 

Amazing Chinese Characters (598) Inside - 里

The bronze script of character Inside is

The top is character Field - 田 (Post 3), the bottom is character Soil - 土 (Post 223). The original meaning of the character is village. 

The big seal script of character Inside is

Similar to bronze script.

The small seal script of character Inside is

Similar to older scripts.

The clerical script of character Inside is

The bottom 

is character Cloth (Post 140). Character Inside is in between the top dot-horizontal-line, which may be a hat. 

However, there is another clerical script of character Inside

Similar as older scripts.

The character got another meaning at least two thousands years ago, which is Chinese Mile (500 meters right now).

Traditional Chinese have both character 裏 and character 里, but each has its own meaning. 裏 means Inside, 里 means Chinese Mile, or Village. Simplified Chinese keeps 里, abandoned 裏, let 里 have Inside (裏）and Chinese Mile (里). 

The Pinyin of the character is Li3.

Amazing Chinese Characters (597) Give - 予

The big seal script of character Give is

Two rings interlocking each other with a tail, which may be silkworm silk, or spider silk.

Silkworm spins silk, which is kind of giving.

The small seal script of character Give is

Similar to big seal script.

The clerical script of character Give is

Totally changed, not like the older script.

The Pinyin of the character is Yu3.

The character 予 is not used alone now, but exist in proverbs and many compound characters.

Amazing Chinese Characters (596) Solicitous - 殷

 The bronze script of character of Solicitous is

The left is character Body (Post 97), a person facing right, raise arms. The right bottom is a hand holding a bent stick with a round head to scratch itchy for the person. 

The big seal script of character of Solicitous is

The left is character Body, the right is character Spear (Post 590), here is hand holding a stick with round head, not spear.

The small seal script of character Solicitous is

The left is character Body, The right is character Spear.

The clerical script of character Solicitous is

The left is changed to a strange form, not character Body. Let us see the clerical script of character Body 

I don't why it is changed to a form unlike character Body.

The Pinyin of character 殷 is Yin1.

Character 殷 means that someone over care, or over concern someone's health to show his kind for potential benefit in the future from the one he cared. Normally this person has power, money, or reputation.