horizontal / across / crosswise / horizontal stroke (in Chinese characters) / to place (sth) flat (on a surface) / to cross (a river, etc) / in a jumble / chaotic / (in fixed expressions) harsh and unreasonable / violent
横
=
木
+
黄
:
Hamlet (h) climbed on the beam (横) of the engine's kitchen ((e)ng2) and now he is too afraid to come down again. If the Yellow Emperor (黄) doesn't want to call the fire brigade, for better or worse he'll have to climb the Christmas Tree (木) to pick Hamlet up.
mountain / hill / anything that resembles a mountain / CL:座[zuo4] / bundled straw in which silkworms spin cocoons / gable
山
=
丨
+
凵
:
Mnemonic symbol: 山 looks like the tip of a fork. Sherlock Holmes (sh) is climbing a mountain (山) in front of the anthill (an1). He uses a dinosaur bone (〡) as walking stick, and to have better grip he attached a fork (山) to its tip. Unfortunately he accidentally sticks the fork into a receptacle (凵) on the ground of the mountain and gets shocked.
乡
=
幺
+
丿
:
Marie Curie's tractor got stuck in a pile of bananas in front of the anglepod, with the wheels spinning helplessly. Her last hope is that she'll be able to free the tractor by pushing aces under the wheels, so that she can bring the tractor back to her hometown.