BeginChinese
every character tells a story
The ancient form
Today

xiū · jau1

to rest

Where it comes from

A person 人 leaning against a tree 木: rest. Three thousand years before the picnic, some scribe walked out of the summer heat, sat down in the shade of a tree, and drew exactly that feeling. It is perhaps the most peaceful character in the language — and you already knew both halves.

A piece of culture

Tea if by sea, chai if by land
Resting in China means tea. The Chinese character is 茶 — but its sound traveled the world twice. Lands that bought tea by ship from the coastal Min region say some form of "te": tea, thee, té. Lands that met it over the land routes say the northern and Cantonese "cha": chai, çay, чай. Say "thee" in Dutch and you are speaking a southern Chinese dialect; say "chai" and you took the Silk Road.

Use it in a real word

休火山
xiūhuǒshān ·
dormant volcano — literally "a resting fire-mountain", three characters you own
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