行 | xíng | háng

In Mandarin Chinese, 行 is an interesting word with a number of pronunciations and meanings. As a verb (Pinyin: xíng 🔊), it could mean “to walk”, “to go”, “to move”, “to carry out”, “to execute”, “to perform”, “to be good”, “to work” etc. Some compound words of 行 (xíng) include

• 行 + 云 = 行云 (xíngyún): a drifting cloud
• 行 + 星 = 行星 (xíngxīng): “moving star”, i.e. planet
• 五 + 行 = 五行 (Wǔ Xíng): although widely known as “the Five Elements”, it is better translated as “the Five Movements”; historically, the five planets
• 出 + 行 = 出行 (chūxíng): to set out on a long journey
• 风 + 行 = 风行 (fēngxíng): to spread or proceed quickly; to be in fashion

As a noun (háng), it could mean “profession”, “trade”, “business”, “place”, “line” (of objects) or “row”. Yet as another noun (pronounced either xíng 🔊 or xìng 🔊) it also could mean “behaviour” or “conduct”.

行 is derived from a pictogram of a street intersection. According to Wiktionary,

Originally symmetric, it has been simplified asymmetrically; the left half 彳 is widely used as a radical, while the right half 亍 finds occasional use, and the character can be broken up as 彳 + 亍, though originally it was not a compound.

But how “crossroads” came to represent all those disparate concepts? Lawrence J. Howell in his Etymological Dictionary of Han/Chinese Characters provides the following connection:

A depiction of straight and crossing roads extending into the distance → go; movement; procession; road → line (of people) → conduct; do; perform (← carry out an action).

tournez à droite, tournez à gauche, tout droit, carrefour, La maison du Matcha, waka waka //
turn right, turn left, straight ahead, crossroads, The House of Matcha, waka waka

More photos related to roads and sea glass @ Shutterstock.

More adventures of sumo wrestler cat @ My leçons de French.

五 | wǔ

In Mandarin Chinese, 五 (Pinyin: wǔ 🔊) means “five”.

Many historical forms of this character look more like an hourglass (𠄡) than the modern 五. Ponte Ryūrui says that its shape follows that of “a wooden receptacle equipped with two lids”, and could even be “an allegory of Heavens and Earth”. Wiktionary suggests that

五 was originally written as five horizontal lines, similar to 一, 二, 三, and the obsolete 亖 (“four”), but in common writing the lines would blend together. Thus, two lines were turned vertical and the right one was shortened, to form one stroke with the middle horizontal line.

Whether or not this was the case, that’s how you can (remember how to) write 五: start with 三 and then add 二 rotated 90° (which could explain why two vertical strokes are unequal in length). In reality, however, the stroke order in 五 is quite different:

The Chinese hand sign for “five” is an open hand.

There is another hanzi with the same meaning, 伍, mainly used for financial purposes. This time it is easy to see 五 there.

More photos related to numbers and sea glass @ Shutterstock.