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SHI
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「According to an ancient Chinese text, the Chinese viewed magnified specimens through a lens at the end of a tube, which tube was filled with varying levels of water according to the degree of magnification they wished to achieve. Ingenious, effective and repeatable in the home, today. That this occurred some 4,000 years ago in the Chow-Foo dynasty and more than 3,500 years before the 'father of modern microscopy' was born is quite remarkable. That these Chinese ancients achieved magnification levels of 150 times today's standard, or 100 moou, is breath-taking.」
[ https://www.microscope.com/about-microscopes-t-19.html 2011-04-23 ]
…so, the ancient Chinese knew about sperm, how they move, what they look like—little「snakes…」
Snakes and other reptiles have「branching, skilled glans」(岐) as a「penis with orifice」:
「A hemipenis (plural hemipenes) is one of a pair of intromittent organs of male squamates (snakes, lizards and worm lizards). Hemipenes are usually held inverted, within the body, and are everted for reproduction via erectile tissue, much like that in the human penis. Only one is used at a time, and evidence indicates males alternate use between copulations as a behavioral means of increasing sperm transfer when the interval between copulations is relatively brief. The hemipenis itself has a variety of shapes, depending on species. Often, the hemipenis bears spines or hooks, in order to anchor the male within the female. Some species even have forked hemipenes (each hemipenis has two tips).」
[ https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hemipenis 2014-06-23 ]
(1) 子 rat (children, spermatozoa)
(2) 丑 cattle (herded meat assets, harem)
(3) 寅 tiger (religious dogma, enslavement)
(4) 卯 rabbit (female, reproduction)
(5) 辰 dragon (power sex)
(6) 巳 snake (fornication)
(7) 午 horse (autoeroticism)
(8) 未 sheep (zooerastia)
(9) 申 monkey (deities, anal-centric)
(10) 酉 cock (cognitive processing impairment)
(11) 戌 dog (male, domination)
(12) 亥 swine (humanity in general).
External source definitions …excluding politically incorrect concepts and other meanings deemed offensive today; may include extended definitions, euphemisms, and mnemonics)
Chinese: 6th earthly branch: 9-11 a.m., 4th solar month (5th May-5th June), year of the Snake
Japanese EDRDG: sign of the snake or serpent, 9-11AM, sixth sign of Chinese zodiac
Unihan extended: the hours from 9 to 11; 6th terrestrial branch
Always keep in mind that these glyphs most likely were originally designed by groups of clever old men as vulgar riddles for their own entertainment
(see 籒 for that),
representing Chinese society many thousands of years ago, but intended NOT as a written or spoken language when created.
If these glyphs had been intended for language use, the sages could not have possibly designed a worse system!
Is it truly possible that all these glyphs started out as off-color jokes and puzzles?
Yes! It is, and often with multiple correct answers to each riddle, the same as is true today.
Sex had no shame in ancient China.
Why would it?
But, have there been necessary rewrites and altered explanations of the original elemental meanings over the centuries?
No one is suggesting these glyphs depict contemporary life in China, Japan, or anywhere else.
This site describes glyph meanings, not people.
These glyphs however, describe many and various things, including people, long before there were any notions of becoming politically incorrect.
The question to be answered is, should these glyphs continue being used, by anyone, anywhere, for expressing language?
(More...)
Despite how seemingly bad our human existence is today, do you actually believe that the so-called good old days were any better?
Or could they have been worse?
By the way, with a limited number of the same elements used by the sages again and again to form these glyphs,
you should expect to find the same explanations again and again, as tedious as that may become, and as an inherent trait of any lexicon.
This site explains multiple meanings of glyphs ignored or censored by other sources, generally as being too embarrassing to admit today.
Primal elements
Japanese vocabulary: 19 entries
Chinese usage: 9 entries
Used in glyphs (or, see also): 145 entries
Related glyphs [ Toggle font ]
Similar glyphs with related meanings: 15 entries
- Glyph.00233
- Strokes: 03
- jlpt-N2 grade_09
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This publication has included material from the MDBG free online English to Chinese dictionary files in accordance with the license provisions of the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 3.0 License.
This publication has included material from the JMdict (EDICT, etc.) dictionary files in accordance with the license provisions of the Electronic Dictionaries Research Group.
This publication has included material from the Unicode Character Database. Copyright © 1991-2016 Unicode, Inc. All rights reserved. Distributed under these Terms of Use.