Autumn ：秋 (“Qiu”)

Dear Friends,

                                                                                      

 

                                          

 

image from  zhounaidong.blog.sohu.com  / www.chinaqw.com

秋 (“qiu”), autumn in Chinese, is a very important word in Chinese culture.

For one thing, it is the harvesting time (秋收, “qiu-shou”), one of the happiest moment for people in a year in rural China or in agricultural based China.

(Note the phrase 王以民为天,民以食为天, ie The subject is the biggest asset for a King, the Food is the most important to the people. Read posting Human being (人))

From the word construction, the word “秋” is made of :

• 禾 (“he”)    : grain
• 火 (“huo”) : fire, meaning ripe

禾 is plant that grows from 2nd Lunar Month(Spring) and matured with ripe grain in the 8th Lunar Month(Autumn), capturing the Essence of Heaven and Earth and store them in the grain.

While 秋 denotes the decline of existing plant, new life is being passed down and stored in the grain.

秋 is also :

• associated with direction West (for 秋 in a year is equivalent to the sun-set time of a day).
• typically the time for settling the  score politically(秋杀, qiu-sha), and therefore Qiu is also associated with Metal (weapon), colour white (color of metal), contraction/sinking and dryness.
• associated with numbers 4, 9,
• associated with spicyness, Lung/Large Intestine systems. Therefore constipation typically is associated with the Lung/Large Intestine systems, with dryness.
• also associated with the Skin, this of course is obvious.

Nothing much of a posting, just some random thought on 秋.

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