Alarmed look on a cyclops' face

Another tendency in RTH that I'm not such a big fan of, is that Heisig does not like to introduce auxiliary characters/graphemes. Matthews, on the other hand, does it all the time, even when the auxiliary character will be used only once, not to mention more frequent graphic elements. While doing Matthews' "Learning Chinese Characters" it seemed funny, maybe even slightly irritating, but now, after I've been able to compare the different approaches, Matthews' seems better. It's usually easier to create a good story that combines only two elements, whereas RTH is chock-full of three- and four-element combinations. Also with Matthews' approach I've learned some rare characters "for free". (Also Matthews usually gives more etymologically correct keywords, but that's another story).

So... characters 環 and 還 (luckily I learned Canjie and can type them without knowing how they are pronounced!). Five elements each! Both of them (frames 677 and 678, ring and give back) contain the same combination (睘) that is also a part of some other characters, in addition to being a character itself. (Pretty rare character, of course, sorting characters by frequency will place it somewhere in 9000+ place). zhongwen.com lists it as "alarmed look" and it seems more or less consistent with other dictionaries. Still, it's a tad too abstract to use as is, I should find something more visual. Another look at the character: eye ... a line, could be a nose ... a mouth ... remains of a "long robe" character... Could be a lot of things, but that large eye on top makes me think of a cyclops. All right, that's pretty memorable, so that's what I'm going to use for 睘: surprised cyclops! Now I just need a good story that involves a king and a surprised cyclops to use for ring.




Characters containing 睘 as a component

還環寰澴儇噮嬛彋懁擐
獧繯缳翾蠉轘鬟鱞檈癏
糫譞鐶镮闤阛鹮䁵䚪䴉
䴋������������������
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Should learn this one: 轘 [huàn] [huán] [sè] (Unihan:) tear asunder between chariots :)
(not that rare, actually, in 7000 range, higher in classical Chinese)