Chinese Cinderella (21 page)

‘Now look at two other words which also contain
(bei). They appear very similar. At first glance, if you are careless, you might even mistake them for each other:
(pin) and
(tan). But you have to be very, very careful. Don’t ever mix them up just because they resemble each other.
(pin) means poverty.
(tan) means greed. Remember how much the two words look alike. Yes, greed and poverty are intimately linked in mysterious ways indeed. All covet, all lose.

‘You have the newspaper in front of you. Pick another word, for instance
(yi). Look at it. The top part
(yin) is “sound”. The bottom part
(xin) is “heart”. Does
not look like a jumping heart? Put
(yin) on top of
(xin) and you have
(yi) which means “sound from your heart”. The new word
(yi) is the symbol for “intention” or “meaning”. What is “intention” but a “sound from your heart”?

‘How about a new word, a difficult word
(jian). On top is the symbol for grass or straw or vegetable matter
. Below is a little house with a partition in the middle
. On the left of the wall is
, a symbol for small. On the right is
(chong), a sign for worm. So here we have a little house made of vegetable matter with a little worm in it. What is the word?
___Cocoon! Look at it again. Now close your eyes! Do you see the little straw hut with a small worm inside?