There are many myths about Japan. Let's look at some of them and see whether they're true or false.
1. Chinese characters developed from the drawings of images. False. The roots of "kanji" are in "ayatori" -- that string game children play using string and their fingers.
Remember "cat's cradle"? You were creating kanji. If kanji developed from drawings, then the kanji for "tori" (bird) is the result of the original drawing of a bird which, through the years, changed into a mass of lines resembling a bird -- with four legs. But anyone who has ever seen a Japanese child play ayatori knows that all the elements of kanji are in that one long piece of string.
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