里
← →
ri
On-Yomi: リ — Kun-Yomi: さと
Elements:
ri, computer, rice field, brains, soil, dirt, ground
Heisig story:
That's right - a ri. Don't bother looking it up in your English dictionary; it's a Japanese word for measuring distances. One ri is about 4 kilometers or 2.5 miles. The kanji depicts how the measure came to be used. Atop we see the rice field, and below the element for land. Those four sections you see in the rice field (and which we made mention of when first we introduced the character in frame 14) are actually measurements of land, much the same as farm-sections in the United States have given us the notion of a "country mile." The land division based on the size of a rice field is called a ri.
Heisig comment:
* To get a more concrete primitive meaning for this kanji, we shall refer to it as a computer, a meaning deriving from the kanji for logic, which we will meet in Lesson 12.
Koohii stories:
1) [Christine_Tham] 30-7-2007(141): The ri is a Japanese way of measuring the area of the GROUND underneath a RICE FIELD.
2) [DrJones] 18-12-2007(86): Hint: Heisig makes here a severe disservice to everyone by using a weird keyword for this character. You'll save a lot (and I mean, a whole lot) of trouble later by giving it instead its intended meaning: House of the Parents.
3) [Bullfrog] 15-4-2008(49): It's not just any computer. It's an old Atari.
4) [uberclimber] 27-2-2011(35): My parents' house is on a rice field; I compute the ground area being one ri by one ri. 古里 (ふるさと) : home town, birthplace, old village, historic village, native place, one's old home; 郷里 (きょうり) : birth-place, home town.
5) [elktapestry] 1-2-2009(33): It frustrates me that Hesig doesn't give any mention to another prominent meaning of the 里 / Ri Kanji being used for さと meaning a country village or home. perhaps he thought it would be too confusing for one to remember two different types of villages and distinguish this from 町 … however… If I think of that one as まち and this one as さと it keeps things straight in my head and allows me to skip the whole confusing path of thinking of this as a "computer" which just seems somewhat wrong.