How do you draw "up"? Not with a thing, but with an idea: a long baseline, and a short mark floating above it. That is the whole character — pure pointing. Its mirror twin points below. Later the floating mark grew a stem and became today's 上.
A piece of culture
Shanghai: on the sea The most famous 上 in the world is a city: 上海, Shanghai — literally "on the sea". Seven hundred years ago it was a fishing town at the mouth of the Yangzi; the name simply described where the nets hung. Today it is one of the largest cities on earth, and its name still reads like a beginner's exercise: 上 on + 海 sea. Chinese place names are little poems hiding in plain sight — 山东 "east of the mountains", 上海 "on the sea".
Use it in a real word
上山
shàngshān · soeng5 saan1
to go up the mountain — like the emperors climbing Mount Tai