The "Mona Lisa" radical

So I’ve been holding this for so long in my chest that my levels have doubled from when I first encountered this radical: 兼. At first glance even without reading the name I thought to myself: “Hey that’s the cat from that recent meme”. I never really liked the “official” meaning, so I added a synonym to just call the radical “meme cat”. Am I the only one who feels like this radical should absolutely be called “meme cat”, or am I alone with this :sweat_smile: ? Pictures for reference:

image

9 Likes

I like this, but I don’t see meme cat in it :thinking:

3 Likes

I guess to me it’s this part here which resembles the face of the cat with those squinty eyes :joy:

image

1 Like

to be fair I also don’t see Mona Lisa in it…

13 Likes

The reason behind the current naming is that the radical kinda looks like a combination of beautiful (美) and brush (筆) so beautiful + brush = beautiful painting = mona lisa

7 Likes

I’m glad it’s working for you, but you need to get off reddit lol

3 Likes

Emphasis on kinda lmao that is such a stretch.

1 Like

I know right! Yet the resemblance to the cat’s face is unmistakable!

1 Like

Just to be clear :joy: I do not agree with you in regards to the cat :joy: Perhaps it would help if you drew in the squinty eyes and such to demonstrate…

1 Like

I vaguely remember reading that in another post and I still… :no_mouth: :joy:

1 Like

I dunno, I kind of see the Mona Lisa in there, looking to the left, flowing fabric, mountains behind, etc.

image

5 Likes

I can try my hand at some photoshop after I finish my kanji studies for today (doing exercises from a book atm), but I don’t promise much :joy: might end up not posting anything if it’s too bad :no_mouth:

1 Like

Then again, I can’t claim that it doesn’t fit the cat any worse or better

EDIT: Actually, I’ll edit this into my post above for side by side comparison :stuck_out_tongue:

1 Like

This is amazing :joy: :joy: :joy:

とても面白い。この漢字が ぜんぜん わすれません。私は猫が大好きです。

1 Like

An absolutely horrid photoshop but this is about what I’m thinking when I see this radical:

3 Likes

i can see cat ears
But i think it is Dexter
images (7)

8 Likes

Ha! I can just hear him saying “DeeDee” just about now whilst I was looking at this photo
:laughing:

2 Likes

This is your brain on Japanese.

1 Like

omlette du fromage

3 Likes