Kanji Clinic #42, The Japan Times, August 28, 2003
“Symbolic sun shows the way to remember a galaxy of kanji”
The August sun in Japan can be merciless, a blazing orb to be fended off with parasols and sunhats. Japanese children normally draw the sun in prominent red. Much to the surprise of his Japanese teachers at our Nagoya daycare, my first child, then aged three, would crayon the sun in bright yellow. This was the same color that I, his American mom, had automatically chosen when Sean and I created likenesses of the sun at home.
It is not surprising that Japanese children almost always depict the sun in red. After all, the national flag, the Hinomaru (日の丸, ball-of-sun）is comprised of a large red sun rising on a white background. Many Japanese people consider the Sun Goddess, Amaterasu O-Mikami, to be the creator of Japan. Little wonder that the sun is often cited as an important element of the Japanese psyche.
In early Chinese writing, a circle was used to represent the sun. Later, a sunspot in the center came to supplement the circle, and this was eventually squared off to form 日, the character used in China and Japan today. 日 helps to form Japanese compounds such as 日光 (sun-bright, “sunshine”), 日没 (sun-sink, “sunset”), and 日食 (sun-eat, “solar eclipse”). Another general-use character, 陽, also means “sun,” and is found in the commonly used word taiyou (太陽, large size-sun, “sun”).
Incidentally, millennia ago, Japan started to refer to its islands as the
land “where the sun originates” 日本 (sun-origin, Japan). Marco Polo
recorded “Zipangu” as the Chinese pronunciation of 日本. Later, Portuguese
traders encountered Malays near southern China who called it “Japang.”
To this day speakers of European languages use an approximation of “Japan”
as the name for the very same country that the Japanese refer to as “Nihon”
or “Nippon.”
“Sun” 日 also represents “days.” With this meaning, 日 serves as a
semantic building block in compounds like 今日 (now-day, “today”), 平日
(flat-day, “weekday”), and 命日 (fate-day, “anniversary of someone’s
death”).
Just as in English and some other European languages, the sun helps launch
each new week in Japanese: 日曜日 (日 sun＋曜 day of the week +日 day=
“Sunday”). In compounds, 日 standing without its mate 本 in some cases
means “Japan:” e.g. 来日 (come-Japan, “coming to Japan”) and 日銀 (Japan-silver,
“Bank of Japan”).
In addition to standing as a kanji in its own right, 日 also serves as
an especially useful kanji component, and is found in dozens of Japan’s
general-use characters. For example, when you join 日 with that other major
luminous celestial body, 月 (the moon), the resulting character, 明, represents
“radiance,” “wise” (i.e., not dim) or “cheerful.”
Here are some other characters that contain the component 日, each one accompanied by a mnemonic from Kenneth C. Henshall’s invaluable “A Guide to Remembering Japanese Characters” (Tuttle). In addition to providing a concise memory device that helps tie together all the components in each of Japan’s 1,945 general-use kanji, Henshall also explains the origin and subsequent evolution of each character.
早 (early): The sun 日 shows ten 十 but it’s still early. (Hint: Picture
a sundial).
間 (space): Gate 門 with space to let sun 日 shine through.
春 (spring): Three 三 people 人 enjoy the spring sun 日.
星 (star): Stars born 生 from the sun 日.
昔 (the past): 21 (ten 十+ ten 十+ one 一= twenty-one) days 日 ago is well
in the past.
旬 (10-day period): 10-day cycle of the circling 
sun 日.
境 (boundary): Stand 立 on sunny 日 ground 土, legs 
astride the boundary.
墓 (grave): Sun 日 shines on big 大 grass 
covered, earthen 土 grave.
If you are holed up with your air-conditioner turned on high, escaping the heat of the August 日, I hope you are studying lots of Chinese characters. As always, my advice is to learn kanji not as whole units but as the sum of their parts.
Sean, by the way, is now a third-grader who draws the sun red like his
Japanese mates when he is in Japan. In the art that he produces during
our family’s summer holidays in the United States, his suns appear in
yellow. Our little bicultural guy seems to have it all worked out.
To read reviews of Henshall’s kanji magnum opus, go here and here .