Fun with Chinese Letters

Subtitle: Fun to learn Chinese as well, by Yiyan Han (c) 2020-11-27

Life can be stressful, and even mundane and boring at times, particularly in this very year 2020!

I’d like to offer you a better distraction from your daily routine by saying a few words about how fun if you knew just a few Chinese letters.

Okay, let’s look at two very simple letters 日(sun) and 月(moon), and when putting them together to form a new word 明 – which means “bright” or “shining”! Logical? You bet.

Alright? So far so good. Let me add another simple letter 白(white, pale as in fair skin colour). Now we have 4 letters, and let’s play with them:

• 白日 – day, in the daylight.
• 白月 – bright/white moon, White Moon, the first day of the year according to the Mongolian lunisolar calendar, also known as Tsagaan Sar.
• 明白 – understand, understanding, understood – Note: The Chinese words have no grammatical tense that expresses time reference.
• 明日 – tomorrow; 明月 – shining moon.
• 明明白白 – very clear (referring to facts or reasoning), obvious, nothing hidden, and so on.
• 日白月明 – bright or clear day and night – tell you what, this seems to be a phrase just made by me! Why not as it makes sense, and, poetic, so can be used in a poem!
• 白日明月 – bright sun and shining moon, also poetic, similar but different meaning to the one above. This phrase does exist.
• 明白日月 – understand sun and moon hence the nature.
• 日月明白 – Both the Sun and Mood understand (that, you, me or something else), very poetic!

As you see, we now have 10 words or phrases from just 4 letters, and have learnt something about our feelings, nature and even the Mongolian lunisolar calendar. It’s so fulfilling for me!

Now, allow me make an even greater fun to play the above 4 letters we’ve just learnt, and use them to write a poem as follows.

白
日月
明日月
日白月明
明明白白日
日月明明白白
日日月月日月明
月月日日明明白白
日月明日白白月明明

This is a nine lines poem using only 4 Chinese letters. How wonderful this is! What a simple and elegant way to express your feelings! By the way, this is by no means a word game, and it’s the very real use of these letters or words by examples. If you understand what I’ve explained about these 4 letters and related phrases above, then you’d understand or guess the meaning of this poem, more or less.