Below the eyes is the nose. The ancient character for “自” just look like a nose. The original meaning of this character was “nose”. Today, the character “鼻” (bí, “the nose”) still has the character “自”. When Chinese people point to themselves, they point to their nose. Therefore, the character “自” later come to mean “self” or “oneself” (“自己”—zìjǐ).

The ancient character “耳” looks just like an ear. The ear is used for listening. Confucius once remarked: “at sixty, my ear was obedient” (六十耳顺—liù shí ěr shùn). In other words, when he reached the age of 60, he could always face the words of others in a calm and dispassionate manner, no matter what he heard them say. The character “耳” can also be used as a character component. Chinese characters with the component “耳” often related to listening. For example, the character “听”(tīn?, “to hear”) used to be written as “?”. The original meaning of “闻(wén)” was “to bear”. Both of these two characters contain the component “耳”.