New these days

A Giant Squid (the persona for zhu) is floating precariously at the very top of the Eiffel Tower’s bathroom (the location for ei4).

In its tentacles, the Giant Squid is desperately trying to hold together a squadron (队) of soldiers who are slipping. To keep them from sliding off the slick bathroom tiles, the squid frantically packs dust and clay (土) around their feet to weigh them down and anchor them to the floor. Despite the squid’s efforts, the heavy squadron (队) and the dust and clay (土) prove too much; they all begin to fall (坠) and drop (坠) together, crashing down toward the bottom of the tower.

Karl Koala (ku) is standing in the center of the ashram’s living room (a3), looking at a massive, unstable structure made entirely of dust and clay (土).

He has been trying to build a monument to himself, and because he loves to boast and exaggerate (夸) his own importance, he has piled the dust and clay higher and higher. To make the structure even more advanced, he has embedded a glowing, subatomic quark (夸) into the very top of the mound.

However, Karl’s pride is his undoing. As he stands there loudly praising his own work, the weight of the quark causes the dust and clay to lose its integrity. The entire structure begins to buckle under the strain, and with a loud rumble, it completely collapses (垮) into a pile of rubble right before his eyes.

Only afterwards it dawns on him that one of the ashram’s rules is that you shall remain humble.

Lancelot (l) wants to cook goosefoot (莱) in the airplane’s kitchen (ai2). He gets his ingredients delivered just in time by boomerang (来) but today they mistakenly sent him artificial lawn (艹) instead of goosefoot.

L is for Sir Lancelot.

Lancelot (l) is cooking dinner in the airplane’s kitchen (ai2) when he hears an eerie ticking, and is soon after shocked to see a mean crocodile (丷) with a ticking kitchen timer (未) stuck between its teeth entering! Panicking he leaves the airplane through the window sitting on top of a spinning boomerang (mnemonic symbol for 来), but he didn’t realize that a boomerang always comes back (来).

Mnemonic symbol: a boomerang, because it always comes back (ideally).

Willy Walrus (w) is not yet (未) allowed to open his presents under the Christmas tree (木) in the Eiffel tower’s bathroom (ei4). He first has to play Christmas songs on the flute (一) until the egg timer (mnemonic symbol for 未) rings.

Mnemonic symbol: an egg timer symbolizes the future and that something is not yet done.

In oracle bone script, 未 depicted a tree with shorter, newer branches budding at the very top.

The Etymology: It represents a tree that is still growing, whose branches have not yet reached maturity. Because the branches are young and new, the top horizontal line was drawn shorter than the main branches below it.

The Concept: Since the tree isn’t fully grown, it came to mean “incomplete,” “not yet,” and by extension, “the future” (what is yet to come).

Mnemonic symbol: a sack of rice.

Marilyn Monroe and the mean crocodile celebrate Christmas with a Christmas tree inside of the space station. Coincidentally they got each other the same present: each of them is giving the other one a sack of rice.

Mnemonic symbol: a crocodile with mean eyes. Beelzebub (b) is fighting with eight crocodiles (丷) in front of the ashram (a1).

Chantal Chicken (chu) decides to host a gourmet dinner in front of the Eiffel Tower (ei1). To prepare the meal, she gathers a roaring fire (火) to heat her pans. However, she realizes she has forgotten her ingredients; she is completely deficient (欠) in supplies! Desperate to feed her guests, she frantically waves an IOU note (欠) at the passing tourists, promising to pay back any food she can borrow. With the fire crackling, her IOU note fluttering in the wind, and the tourists’ contributions she manages to cook (炊) a feast just in time.

Zorro got a new task from mission control: he is to have an egg standing on its tip. Zorro thinks smart and remembers the egg of Columbus, so he puts the egg in a graduation cap as egg cup and ditches one end of the egg with a huge printing letter. Unfortunately the egg wasn’t boiled and there is no gravity, so he messes up the whole bathroom. Mission control can’t stop laughing since all they wanted was to fool Zorro into this trick.

Xu Xian (xu) wants to study (学) cooking in the elevator’s kitchen (e2). For his dish he uses eggs (子) and (by mistake) catnip (⺍). Lots of cats are circling him, even though he covers his dish with a saucepan lid (冖).

Mnemonic symbol: catnip, because it somehow looks like a growing plant.

Zorro wants to eat an egg in the space station, and he already put it in a prize cup, as he has no egg cup. He also lacks a spoon, so he uses a big flute to crush the egg open.

Mnemonic symbol: for “the wild west” I choose a cowboy hat. To me, 西 also kind of looks like a cowboy hat: 囗 looks like the brim and 兀 looks like the crown of the cowboy hat.

Xi Shi (xi) went crazy from the loneliness in outer space. In front of the space station (Ø1), she sits inside of a large plastic enclosure (囗), wearing a cowboy hat (西) and playing a 胡兀尔 (兀) fiddle, thinking that she’s participating in a square dance in the wild west (西).

Sun Wukong (儿) is playing his 胡兀尔 (兀) in the space station’s bathroom (Ø4), but he’s deliberately playing very badly in order to annoy Willy Walrus (w). Willy Walrus is so annoyed that he threatens to cut off Sun Wukong’s feet (兀) with a flute (一) if he doesn’t stop.

Mnemonic symbol: A 胡兀尔, a kind of Asian fiddle with four strings, in Chinese more commonly known as 四胡. 胡兀尔 is the Chinese transliteration for the Mongolian name of this type of fiddle.

Alternatively, “vulture” would probably be a good mnemonic symbol for 兀, but I already use “vulture” as mnemonic symbol for 兆.