yellow, huang

HUANG, 'yellow'  - We're starting with Huang because it was one of the first characters I could relate and explain easily to other people.  From top down we see the radical for cao, 'grass or grain', the character for field (which looks like four boxes), and at the bottom the radical for 'eight', ba, which also means 'many.'  So the charcter for yellow is basically a picture of endless fields of grain, something that can be seen in Pennsylvania, Illinois, Nebraska and many other places in the wide world.  'Yellow,' I suppose like 'gold' has overtones of 'prosperity and abundance' to it, (hence the number 'eight,' ba, is part of it), perhaps because it is the color of the sun.  So many of our forebears were sun-worshippers around the world.  I've tinted this character just a little bit green, to get that color of new grass, that yellow-green shade.

Comments

[Michelle]

Breathtaking! You have a rare talent!

[Kel]

Thanks for the interesting read, Huang is my family name and now I have a better picture of how it was "formed"

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