The Most Lovable Chinese Character
(guaranteed by me & approved by fifth graders)
I drew the Chinese character with a dry erase marker on the whiteboard, sixteen strokes in total, while a classroom full of fifth graders watched expectantly.
“This one looks like the animal that it represents,” I explained. “Can you guess what it is?”
A flurry of hands shot up, and my students shouted out animals indiscriminately – “A bear! A seal! A lion!”
I stood and shook my head, holding back a grin, until a timid voice called out: “Is it a turtle?”
Whipping across the room, I pointed enthusiastically at the student and yelled, “Yes! You just have to look at it this way.”
In unison, 25 ten-year-olds and one 20-something long-term substitute teacher cocked their heads 45 degrees to the right, and the room filled with even more shouting. “I see it! There’s the shell! Is that the legs?”
It’s a fun party trick, depending on your audience. But it doesn’t work for every Chinese character.
Start learning the language and you’ll find characters built in a plethora of ways: radicals, meaning associations, sound associations.
Of the pictograms, gui, the character for turtle, is my undisputed favorite. He just looks so darn turtle-y.
If you Google the simplified version, you might be a bit disappointed. Gui’s shelly, leggy essence has been somewhat stripped away, with just the suggestion of a turtle remaining.
But the traditional version – still used in Taiwan, Hong Kong, and Macau – preserves that lovable, time-transcending turtley-ness that has been passed on for thousands of years.
His two legs stick out like forks emerging from a square shell, which is decorated with a humble “X” design. You need to use some imagination to see his head, formed at the very top of the character, but it’s easy to track his sweeping, elegant tail, which swishes through the entirety of the body.
Gui is a bit of a pain to write, but he’s a pleasure to behold – representing a marvel of linguistic evolution, and the impressive endurance of this silly little guy.
I agree too! Just darn I didn't see the turtle at first glance. I am passing on Cantonese to my children now despite not being able to read and write, but I know that Cantonese is still using the traditional letters. Personally I find them more beautiful too, but if I would someday learn to read and write, I admit that the simplified version seems less daunting? Unless I can see pictures in all the other traditional characters like this little turtle here too!
For a second, I thought you meant like, cartoon character, and was expecting Xiyangyang or something xD This reminds me of a cartoon my brother and I used to watch when we were younger (on DVDs!) about a cat who teaches a pair of tiger brothers chinese characters and the history behind how they got simplified to what we know now. I wonder if my mom still has the collection haha