The ancient Chinese incorporated their observations and awareness of nature into the shapes of Chinese characters.

Learn Chinese: 星 (xing, “the star”)

The ancient Chinese people referred to all celestial bodies other than the sun and the moon as “星”. It refers to those bright and shiny celestial bodies that appear in the night sky. As we can see, the character is led by “日” (the sun) as its head, and then a shape of “三” at the bottom, the character “三” (san) means “three”. In ancient China, the number “three” was often used to denote “many”. As there are countless stars in the sky, so there is a “三” at the bottom. With the sun and other stars, a general picture of all the stars came into being. That’s the source of the character “星”. And in real life, we use two “星”，namely “星星” (xingxing) to refer to all the stars.