Mnemonic comic for 五

radical in Chinese characters (Kangxi radical 2)

vertical stroke (in Chinese characters), referred to as 豎筆|竖笔[shu4 bi3]

variant of 乙[zhe2]

work / worker / skill / profession / trade / craft / labor

king or monarch / best or strongest of its type / grand / great

to rule / to reign over

idiot / stupid person / a dope

lit. count by fives and tens (idiom); to narrate systematically and in full detail

5-1 (May 1st)

several / three or five

in groups of three or four (idiom)

over and over again (idiom)

Sanxia wuyi (lit. Three knight-errants and five righteous one), novel edited from stories of late Qing dynasty pinghua 評話|评话 master storyteller Shi Yukun 石玉昆

three sovereigns 三皇[san1 huang2] and five emperors 五帝[wu3 di4] of myth and legend / the earliest system of Chinese historiography

three principles and five virtues (idiom) / the three rules (ruler guides subject, father guides son and husband guides wife) and five constant virtues of Confucianism (benevolence 仁, righteousness 義|义, propriety 禮|礼, wisdom 智 and fidelity 信)

Tales from 5000 Years of Chinese History in three volumes by Cao Yuzhang 曹餘章|曹余章[Cao2 Yu2 zhang1]

lit. one half equals zero point five (division rule in abacus reckoning) / to share fairly between two parties / to go fifty-fifty

twenty four dynastic histories (or 25 or 26 in modern editions)

memorial activity 35 days after a person's death

generation of 1957 / refers to Mao's anti-rightist purge of 1957

May 7 cadre school (farm where urban cadres had to undertake manual labor and study ideology during the Cultural Revolution) (abbr. for 五七幹部學校|五七干部学校[Wu3 Qi1 Gan4 bu4 Xue2 xiao4])

1 divided by 16 is 0.0625 (abacus rule) / (fig.) to deny responsibility; to pass the buck

see 一推六二五[yi1 tui1 liu4 er4 wu3]

three, set five remove two (abacus rule) / efficiently / quickly and easily

(Tw) from time to time / frequently

to order again and again (idiom)