Deer Radical 198

I think this radical reminds us there was a time when deer were abundant in China when the majority of mountains and hills were forested and the deer wandered into the lowlands. There's another character using this radical that means the land around the bottom of hills and mountains probably open woodlands  as it shows two trees over the deer radical and then there's the Hanzi for dust which is deer leaving dust in their trail. This is lot more obvious in the seal script forms which show the horns and the lower part are much more legs.

Every character has a story!

Shino Story

What does #dwarf #bamboo and #Shino a type of Japanese Glaze and ceramic style have to do with each other?

Read on but first ... a couple of pictures you need to see

Sasa or "dwarf" bamboo

There's this story repeated in several books and articles that Shino was named after a tea master called Shino Soshin and certainly MODE|RN Japanese uses the characters of his name to write SHINO b u u u t I think the word has an older origin in another word with the same pronunciation and I suspect some one thought writing it with two characters looked more "posh"?

Shino as a ceramics and glaze PREDATES Shino Soshin.

One of the favorite design motifs on early Momoyama Shino is a little sketch in iron slip of a plant.

Okay this is probably grass but you get my point?

I think Shino get its name from a design motif


I can see a conversation like this occurring in 17th century Kyoto at a ceramics shop.

NO honorable customer that is karatsu ware this is from Mino the Shino and Oribe ware. See Shino?

It's possible?

please support this blog via PayPal.me/JulieVaux

Lai and Natural sounds and ...Chinese Oboes?

I was going thru the dictionary researching details for the next blog and found this character.

Intrigued I checked it out on a few more web lexicons and different hanzi kanji dicitonaries.

AFTER I finished the svg / png I worked out that the lexicons that state the LAI was a pipe with three reeds may have typos. I now suspect three reed is a mistyping for FREE REED.

I don't know what the modern equivalent of a LAI pipe is but its something like a woodwind  with a reed insert at the mouthpiece like the OBOE ? 

There is a Laotian instrument called a KHENE and the word used to describe its modes of sound is LAI.

A loan from  Chinese perhaps?

If anoyone has a picture of a LAI or knows what the modern equivalent is please SHARE!?