The character in front of that perfectly sculptured cloud is (京) or jing, the Chinese character meaning capital (city). It looks different to the typed out character, because it’s styled, calligraphy esque. It’s beautiful, because of how weird it actually is. You see, a character in Mandarin, is unlike that of any other language, where in it is not just written, but it is crafted.
Each character consists of straws, and each straw has to be drawn in sequence. From top to bottom, left to right. The character must flow. That is the basic rule of thumb of a character constructed. It’s time consuming, yes, but it is also an art form. Difficult to master, but patience is key.
There are over 50,000 characters in total, but a regular person would only know about 8,000. 2,000 to 3,000 characters are enough to read a newspaper. Once you understand how to construct, reading foreign character is only a matter of building and understanding.
Simple right?
Leave a Reply