The Last Samurai (30 page)

KEN (cocoon)/mayu (cocoon)

BOKU MOKU (tree, wood)/ki (tree, wood)

taiboku (gigantic tree)

SUI (jade green, emerald green, verdure; kingfisher)

SHIN (thick woods)/mori (thick woods)

shinshin deeply forested

KI (turtle, tortoise)/kame (turtle, tortoise)

After we had thoroughly mastered our characters we went to the library. I have been trying all week to find out my father’s name but Sibylla will not even tell me the first letter. I decided to borrow Kon Tiki.

Sibylla and I had another argument today about characters. Sibylla said if she picked
KA (fire)/hi (fire) and I picked
EN (flame,

blaze)/hon
ō
(flame, blaze) and if we bore in mind the fact that
was the radical magarigawa for river we would understand in an intuitive way why
SAI/wazawa(i) meant natural calamity/disaster and we would then see why
jinsai was a manmade calamity and
kasai was fire or conflagration. I said is Thor Heyerdahl my father? Sibylla said certainly not. I said well if you want to pick all those characters you can, are you picking them? Sibylla said aren’t you? I said if she got four including the radical for river I wanted