和

What is the meaning of the character '和' in Mandarin?

A translation into English indicates that the meaning is: "peace, harmony, union"
How, then, does the character itself espouse this? After all, many Chinese characters have a pictographic link with their meaning.

Let us split the character into its two component parts.
On the left-side, there is the character "禾", which means "cereal, grain".
On the right-side, there is the character "口", which means "mouth".

The question then arises, what does eating cereal have to do with peace?

In Ancient China, whenever rival states went to war, they would mobilise the populace, forge arms, and collect food for the army. Of these, only the collection of food was out of control of mortal rulers, since food production is usually at the whim of the seasons and the weather. For this reason, whenever they invaded a place, armies would first strip the local crops of food before relying on their own resources from home, not only shortening their own supply routes, but denying the enemy a valuable resource.

Therefore, in times of war, the ordinary peasants would lose their crops, either to their rulers confiscating it for the army, or to any invading armies. Conversely, in times of peace, there would be plenty of food for all to eat.



I made up everything in this post. It makes sense though, doesn't it?