Amazing Chinese Characters (350) Flourish - 兴

 The shell bone script of character Flourish is

There are two drawings. 

The top one: a rammer in the middle, and two hands on each side, and palms up, the rammer is lower than the people who are trying to raise the rammer to higher position.

The bottom one: the rammer (different type) in the middle, and two hands on each side, and the rammer is at same height as the people. The two people released the rammer, let it free drop down.

The two drawings make a dynamic movement of ramming.

The bronze script of the character is

Similar to shell bone script, but some lines are connected instead of separated, which makes confusion. But if you compare it with the shell bone script, you can find the similarity.

The small seal script of the character is

We can see the hands. If we see carefully, we can see that the lower rammer - 口 is close to the upper rammer which has longer ropes covering the lower rammer. too close to see two rammers.  

The clerical script of the character is

The top part is similar to that of small seal script, the bottom long dots are two simplified hands.

The song typeface for the traditional character is

興

Very similar to the clerical script.

The song typeface of simplified character is

兴

The top becomes 3 long dots, each represent one part of the top, reducing the strokes dramatically. At the same time, the pictography of character is destroyed. 

Its Pinyin is Xing1.

The character could combine with 高 - High, to form a word 高兴 - Happy. The pronunciation of 高兴 is Gao1-Xing4.

So there are two pronunciations: Xing1, Xing4.