餅
Let’s learn kanji 餅!
日本に人気ある食べ物『餅』の漢字です。🎑
餅 - もち glutinous rice cake
大福餅 - だいふくもち a mochi rice cake stuffed with anko 餡こ red bean paste and a whole strawberry 🍓
餅つき - もちつき (臼でつく) pounding rice with special mallet-shaped mallet pounder (杵 きね) in a mortar (臼 うす), in order to form mochi
画餅 - がべい a total failure/disaster (lit. painting made with mochi)
月見- つきみ moon viewing
One of the stories surrounding 月見 says that there is bunny on the moon pounding rice for mochi cakes 🐰 (how did the bunny find its way to the moon and why it pounds mochi instead of Earth viewing - nobody knows!)
※ 餅 is a newer, simplified form of the traditional character. Such form is called shinjitai 新字体, or: a new-style character, developed as the result of the reforms of Japanese writing system in after WWII.
In Japan, you can still occasionally see the so-called kyūjitai 旧字体 (an old-style, or ‘previous system‘ character), which has slightly more complicated left radical part.
They both mean a delicious mochi, and that’s all that matters 😊
You can learn how to write the old style by following the link below:
諺
Japanese proverb 諺：
絵に描いた餅は食えぬ - えにかいたもちはくえぬ Never confuse art with life.
(lit. You can’t eat the rice cake in a picture.)