The Chinese character '親' (read: Qin)carries the meaning of parenthood. According toEastern Han philologist Xu Shen in his book ShuowenJiezi (Explaining Graphs and Analysing Characters), Qin means intimacy. The character can be deconstructed into two elements, first as '見' (read: Jian), meaning look;and '亲' which contributes the phonetic component, 'Qin'. Another renderingof the characteris'儭', which is added with the element of '人' (read: Ren),meaning human. Hence, the entire character Qin signifies intimacy or familial relationships.

The Japanese Kanji letter '親' is pronounced as 'OYA'; with its meaning vividly derived from the components of theletter; '立'(read: Li) meaning standing, ''’ (read: Mu) meaning tree, and '見' (read: Jian) meaning watching. Therefore, Qin can be visualised as our parents standing at a vantage point, watching over us. No doubt, such reinterpretation of what is fundamentally a Chinese character is not necessarily accurate but is nevertheless highly interesting. The 「立木見」 (Li, Mu, Jian) reinterpretation is not based on any ancient texts, yet remains widely received by the Japanese community. From this point, we can see how the word, meaningful as it is, also sheds light on useful perspectives in life.