魚

---

← →

fish

On-Yomi: ギョ — Kun-Yomi: うお、さかな、-ざかな

Elements:

fish, bound up, rice field, brains, oven-fire, barbecue

Heisig story:

The composition of this kanji shows three elements, which we list in the order of their writing: bound up . . . rice field . . . cooking fire. Not much to work with at first sight. But we can join them together by thinking of a three-part story: first a fish is caught and bound up on a line with its unfortunate school-mates; when the fisherman gets home, he cuts off the head and tosses it, with the entrails, out into the rice fields for fertilizer; and the rest he sets in a skillet over a cooking fire for his supper.

Koohii stories:

1) [silkcherryblossoms] 10-6-2007(106): The elements of this kanji are bound up, rice field and cooking fire. When I think of bound up cooked rice, it makes me think of sushi, which in turn brings to mind fish.

2) [tomusan] 12-2-2008(56): Bind that FISH and cook his brains! Yarhh!

3) [Christine_Tham] 30-7-2007(42): That fish was caught, BOUND UP, then carried across RICE FIELDS, and finally cooked over an OVEN FIRE.

4) [DavidZ] 20-9-2010(18): Think of (cooked) salmon onigiri. The fish is bound up in rice and cooked over a fire… 魚 [さかな] 、金魚 [きんぎょ] 、魚市場 [おういちば].

5) [Keiran_Halcyon] 9-7-2009(9): I like my fish bound with rice over a nice fire. Sushi!!

---