Login
Welcome! Introduction
Glyphs missing from your font set may appear strange, or not at all. We recommend enabling East Asian language support.
KI KU
Glyph elements [ Toggle Font ]
CHRYSANTHEMUMS apparently were native to China formerly, with some recorded descriptions of their cultivation dated 3,500 years ago. Rumored to have been first introduced into Japan 2,300 years later, around the eighth century, when the Chinese suggested that the flower be used to represent the Japanese emperor and his authority over the people of Japan, with specimens as gifts for the Japanese emperor himself…not likely intended as a compliment at the time, considering the elemental meanings of this glyph. Most likely, this occurred while the Japanese emperor's representatives were visiting China to complain about the glyph first assigned by the Chinese to represent Japan (meaning 'behaviorally submissive, physically short, lame, dwarf, person with gonorrhea-ridden female.' See 倭 for details) and the region of Japan was then assigned the name 日 or 曰, and 本 or 夲…see those glyphs for further historical insults of Japan by the Chinese, along with 'imbecile, ignoramus' (龺). CHRYSANTHEMUMS (in particular, the many long drooping petals) are ascribed to being a symbol of LONG LIFE, as also described by the glyphs 寿 and 壽, since chrysanthemums have a long flowering period, longer than most any other flower. In China, the「Chrysanthemum Gate」often abbreviated as chrysanthemum flower (菊花), is slang meaning「anus」(with sexual connotations)
[ https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chrysanthemum#cite_ref-19 2017-04-17 ]…hope that clears up how this flower became associated with Japan, and in particular, the Japanese emperor and his throne.
External source definitions …excluding politically incorrect concepts and other meanings deemed offensive today; may include extended definitions, euphemisms, and mnemonics)
Chinese: chrysanthemum
Japanese EDRDG: chrysanthemum
Unihan extended: chrysanthemum
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: 75 entries
Chinese usage: 29 entries
Related glyphs [ Toggle font ]
Similar glyphs with related meanings: 3 entries
- Glyph.04881
- Strokes: 11
- jlpt-N2 grade_08
Agree? Disagree? Express your opinion by posting a comment.
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.