vonPeterhof wrote:

shinsen wrote:

I've been told that the way Japanese kids learn 親 (parent) in school is by imagining a parent that stands on top of a tree and watches the kids. They think it's a clever way to remember that particular kanji. Lo and behold. They use mnemonics, they know it works.
...
How's this for a school manual - "痩 - The sickness that only allows you to eat monkey crotch will surely make you lose weight." Hey, it makes perfect sense, it's just as easy as "parent", but it's just too freaking ridiculous.

My story for 親 isn't exactly kid-friendly either. The pepper and seeing reminded me immediately of a high school classmate of mine who went out drinking one night, got into a confrontation with the police and got pepper-sprayed in the face. He claims that he sobered up immediately after the spray hit his eyes, and after that he must have been thinking "Damn, what will my parents say when they see me in such a condition?"

Edit: Just realized that I never actually published that story on the main site - time to correct that omission!

Hmm, I just thought that a parent standing in a tree watching over their kids was great, first thing that came to mind for me and stuck :p