Learn Chinese Characters 144 包

包 （bāo)



It looks like the perfet position formed by a mom's two arms to hold her baby. Babyies sleep very well in this position and are happy to look at his or her mom. The character above is the original form of the character "包", which means "to wrap" or "parcel". Chines dumplings is known for its good tasting. When Chinese make dumplings, we put meat and vegetable fillings onto a round and thin sausage-like dough, and then wrap wrap into somthing half-moon shaped and seal the edges. This process is called "包饺子".  There is another similar food with larger dumpling skin and more fillings, which is called 包子 (Chinese steamed bun).

Now, "勹" is used as a radical called baozitou. You will find many characters such as "句" "勺" "勾" "旬" share the radical "勹".

In addition, the character "包" is also an important radical. It implies the pronounciation and foundamental features of the combined characters that it forms, and it always on the right side. The left part often gives a clue that "what does the combined character have something to do with". For example, the character "泡" (bubble) has something to do with "water"; the character "跑"（run）has something to do with feet; the character "抱" (hold) has somehting to do with hands.

Useful Phrases；

包子 （bāo zi）Chinese steamed bun

包饺子 （bāo jiǎo zi） Chinese dumplings

包裹 （bāo guǒ ）parcel

背包 （bēi bāo）backpack