35000 BCE - Dragon

Qianfeng Daoism: Enter the Dragon! (9.2.2024)

Considering how important the concept of the ‘Dragon’ is throughout Chinese culture – I was surprised just how haphazard the construction of its representing ideogram actually is. As this is my area of academic expertise, I could not believe what I was looking at! Consequently, it took me three-days to disentangle the mess that this ideogram seems to have gotten itself into. Having achieved this objective – I then unloaded the finished article onto the Qianfeng Daoist website I help to administer.

The Great ‘Ginseng’ Heist! 

The etymology of the term ‘人蔘’ (Ren Shen) is interesting and complex and well worth exploring, as this is the term Westerners are routinely using when referring to ‘Ginseng’. The first ideogram ‘人’ (ren2) and refers to a ‘human-being’. This Ideogram is often associated with ‘們’ (men2) – meaning ‘us’ or ‘fellow people gathered behind the safety of a gate’ – and ‘閄‘ (huo4) – meaning a ‘door or gate in-front of a human-being’ or ‘a human-being protected by a structure or institution’, etc.

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