100 CHINESE CHARACTERS -- ORDERING
CRITERIA
Most things in life are taken for granted. This makes us blind to
their true values. That is how we feel about certain Chinese
characters. The sentiments such characters invoke in us,
representing morality and human relations, are so seamlessly integrated
into our psyches that they become us. It's only when we notices
their absence in others, or even ourselves, that we appreciate their
losses. So this may serve as a guide to how we should select and
order the 100 Chinese characters.
Specifically, we need to consider: if we were going to give up
everything in life, what's the last thing we want to grab hold
onto? That would be the first character. Then, the next to
the last thing? That would be the second. And so on.
As an example, I, and I sense most Chinese, would not want to live on
if emotion is gone out of their lives. If Chinese are to describe
hell, that's it. So, I choose "emotion", or 情, as the first
character. Pictorially, it depicts a blue, or pure, heart, the
kind that is capable of linking humanity.
The next one is not so hard to choose either. It's what would I
die for? It's the word that means: sacrifice oneself for
righteousness, or 义. Sadly, it's been so brutally simplified, the
sentiment it invokes is now just a shadow of the former traditional
self, which paints: "I" shall sacrifice myself as a "lamb".
Actually ancients in China have most of the characters already arranged
in standard texts for learning them. And their order could
theoretically obtained from a statistical survey of the writings in
placards or even paintings that are hung across China, and many Asian
countries. But the closest places we can find them are in our
hearts, or our conscience. For the modern men, they are the
manifestations of our genes.
This selection process essentially represents an inward examination of
whom we are? Or, in this tumultous world, whom we want to aspire
to be? We have come this far in five thousand years nearing
completing the creation the characters. Let's take a step in this
new journey.