There’s no better feeling, I think, than realizing you can read a new kanji. Recently, I learned 衛 (e, ei, mamoru: defense, protection), which is used in 護衛 (goei: guard, convoy) and 近衛 (konoe: Imperial Guard). This kanji doesn’t particularly capture my imagination and is not really practical in a day-to-day sense at my job. However, since I’m reading 「ベルサイユのばら」 (The Rose of Versailles) and Oscar Francois de Jarjeyes is in the Imperial Guard, I see 近衛 and 護衛 on nearly every page. Now that I’ve learned that kanji, I can read the manga faster!
As for kanji that have caught my eye in the last month, I have some new favorites.
Alligator (wani) 鰐
The left side is the radical for fish (and other marine life), and I think that the right side looks like an alligator’s eyes and snout.
Lapis lazuli 瑠 (the ru of ruri 瑠璃)
As I’ve said, I seem to be attracted to “beautiful words” in kanji (like 琳). This one is jewel 玉 + away 留 (the ru of 留守 [away from home] and the ryuu of 留学 [study abroad]). The combination of the radicals don’t help me remember this with a story, like 殺す (to kill 殺 by hitting [right half of] 殴 someone with a piece of wood 木 shaped like a cross メ), but it has a pretty meaning, so it sticks.
Additionally, I may or may not have been obsessed with a certain gemstone proto-computer game that my best friend of 20 years owned when we were kids. Also, lapis lazuli is my birthstone.
Holly tree (hiiragi) 柊
This one is beautiful in its simplicity. Holly is a tree that blooms in winter, so the kanji is tree 木 + winter 冬.
Kebab/skewer (kushi) 串
Like 鰐, the kanji that means kebab or skewer has such a wonderful shape. This kanji is one of the 196 kanji that will be included in the new jouyou 常用 kanji, a set of approximately 2000 kanji for everyday use. That is, to attain “fluency” in a general sense, specialized words 専門語 aside, these are the 2000+ kanji one needs to be able to read, pronounce, and (hopefully) write. One often sees this kanji at restaurants with yakiniku 焼き肉, which is basically a meat kebab.
I love that kanji have a shape to them. There are a lot of English words that I really like, but I can’t really say that I find the spelling of English beautiful. Latin and Greek roots are fun since I know them, but there’s no visual pleasure to be had in expanding my vocabulary in my 母国語. And so my love/hate relationship with kanji continues.
The Lobster Dance 
衛 is great. And comes up in lots of Edo period names.. basically anything that ends in “bee” or “hee”, like Tasogare Seibee たそがれ清兵衛 (the Japanese title for the movie Twilight Samurai).
I like 瑠璃 a lot too, and of course 浄瑠璃.
I’d never heard of or seen 柊, so that’s news!
And, yeah, kushi. One of the few wonderful kanji that really do look like what they mean. Good stuff.
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なるほど。I bet if I had been in history, I would have known 衛 already. (Or if I had learned 衛生 or 衛星 before). It’s so interesting to see how word and kanji usage evolves. “Archaic” English words for fashion or jobs really interest me, though. Today I really like haberdashery, but that’s no doubt because I’ve been on a Scarlet Pimpernel kick lately.
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I love the kanji for kebab, too! I’m awful at kanji, so I love how simple it is to figure out.
I’ve never thought about the beauty of English words, but I know that I definitely have opinions of which names have a nice spelling. I don’t want to give my child a name that I don’t enjoy writing or imagining the spelling of. I guess that’s a similar feeling to enjoying a kanji.
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Kebab is one of those kanji that I could “read” before I could pronounce, haha.
Also, yes, please don’t name your kids Krystylynne. I guess most normal-ish names have a shape that we’re used to seeing, but the bizarre ones just look off, too. (Shyann as an alternate spelling of Cheyenne made me want to cry when I saw it once…)
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Don’t know how far back it stretches, but in the Taiga drama 風林火山, which is during the Warring States Period, there’s lots of characters whose names end in 〜衛門 (-emon).
Hm, I guess spelling itself isn’t beautiful, but it’s easy to make English ugly. u no, like when ppl write like this bc its to hard 4 them to hit 2 or 3 more keys and shift.
^_^’
Though personally, I’ve been doing calligraphy since I was a little girl, so I do find writing in English beautiful.
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Actually, now that you mention it, I think illuminated texts are very beautiful, although I think most of them are in Latin. And people can have beautiful handwriting and calligraphy. Mine is certainly legible but sadly not shapely.
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