禾口

In the book Eat, Pray, Love, Gilbert's friend mentioned that every city has a word. Rome's is "sex," the Vatican's is "power", and New York's is "achieve".

How about countries? A recent article in Wall Street Journal discussed what Chinese character reflected China the most.

It's 和.

If 和 is separated into two parts, they are 禾and口. 禾and 口 mean crop and mouth respectively. Every "mouth" is fed by "crop"-no one is starving. It seems match with the communist ideas quite well. (but is China still a communist country?)

和hé means "peace" , "harmony" and many others. 家和万事兴,和气生财and以和为贵are both Chinese sayings emphasising how important 和is. It brings you good luck and wealth. It is a virtue. Interestingly enough, these sayings tell us the promises of 和, but not many sayings out there show us how we can maintain it.

Maybe it's not about HOW, maybe it's all about the MUST to maintain it. One of the ways to maintain 和 is to punish any "act disturbing the peace of the society".

In some contexts, 和 is also pronounced as huò, it means "mix" and "blend". There are 56 ethnic groups and more than 6 religions in China, the meanings "mix" and "blend", to some extent, seems to reflect the reality quite well.

Though, I think it would be nice to have some "mixed VOICES" in China.