art of chinese

on vacation

I'll be on vacation until June 30.

master, zhu

Zhu(3), master, also used for 'emperor,' is another character based on the character for jade, yu, meaning something precious that has descended from heaven. I think this is interesting because it implies that our leaders are 'heaven-sent' or established by the will of God.  This may ultimately be true, but only in one sense, namely that between the apparent randomness of events and their repercussions, seen by some as 'fate,' we end up getting 'who we get' in these positions.  The danger lies in reifying these results, in deifying our leaders and bowing down to them out of anything more than respect - I believe in demonstrating respect for those leaders whom we do genuinely respect - people can get really crazy over projecting divinity onto their leaders.  Cases in point: Hitler, Alexander, Napoleon, Stalin.  Maybe it's the American in me, but I want to be able to vote someone out of office if I don't like what he stands for.

An alternate breakdown of the character puts a 'cover' over the 'earth,' suggesting that our leaders are here to protect us.  Again, we are at the mercy of our leaders as to whether they are indeed protecting us, or rather exploiting us.  In either case, a democracy seems preferable to me over a monarchy, dynasty or oligarchy.  But that's just a personal note.

Speaking of pesonal notes: I've decided not to try to include all the incidental characters on these pages, because I've discovered they don't show up anyway on certain browsers, and they're a lot of extra trouble. 

It's interesting that if you add the radical for 'man' to the left of this character the word becomes zhu(3) 'to live, to reside, to stay.'  If you add the radical for 'hand' it means  zhu(3) 'to lean upon' - so it would seem there is a definite connotation of 'permanence' to this character.  A look at the history of chinese dynasties reinforces this notion that the 'master' or 'emperor' is meant to be a permanent fixture.

Zhu (3), as used here for 'master' had the original meaning of 'host', then went on to mean 'owner' as in 'slave-owner' and 'master.'  All the compound words using this zhu imply the idea of 'the chief': zhubi, editor-in-chief; zhuban, sponsor; zhudao, leading, dominant, guiding; zhudong, initiative; zhudui, home-team; zhufeng, highest peak in a mtn range; zhufu, housewife, hostess; zhugen, taproot; zhuguan, person repsonsible; zhujiang, chief commander; zhujiao, bishop; zhujue, protagonist; zhuke, major course; zhuliang, girder; zhuliu, main stream or current; zhuyan, lead actor; zhuyi, doctrine; zhuyin, keynote.