Ghinese Characlers：Poelic Symbols

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The numbers of Chinese language learners across the world have been on the rise in recent years.While those used to phonetic languages often find Chinesecharacters dificult to learn，some learners may experience the gratification of discovering historical and cultural elements in the process.

Symbols of Sentiment

Some pictographic symbols of Chinese characters express people’s keen observation and experience of the world.This is why some European poets have found Chinese characters inspiring to their imagination.Ezra Pound（1885-1972），for example，was well known for his admiration of Chinese characters，from which he was able to draw creativity.When he saw the character 旦 in the dictionary，he was reminded of the morning sun.

Pound’s poetic allusions are not without basis.Take the character旦，for example-the upper part is a sun symbol，while the lower part represents the horizon.In other words，the character indeed stands for“the sun rising on the horizon.”The name of a famous university in Shanghai，Fudan，is composed of the characters fu and dan.Taken from a line from the classic，Great Comments on the Book of Documents（Shangshu dazhuan），meaning，“The sun and moon rise day after day，”the characters were chosen to encourage students to learn new knowledge every day.

A number of characters containing (ri) as an element all relate to the rising orsetting of the sun.For example，the original complex form of the character for “east，”shu，looks like the sun rising from a forest.One of the complex forms of the character for the“morning sun”is written as l.The left part consists of the symbols for“sun”and”grass.”The right part is the symbol for“river.”The character means“the morning sun rising and shining over the flowing river.”The character (mu) was originally written as (mu) ，resembling a scene of the sun setting into a forest.The left part of the character (ming) was originally the symbol for“window，”while the right part stands for“moon.”Thus，(ming) depicts a scene of the moon shining through the window.Is this not a poetic conception？The complex character for“beauty”is written as.It resembles two deer running side by side on a mountain.A beautiful scene，is it not？