After the willows' shade and flowers' brightness, there's another village. (Things look up after hardship.)
Tips
culture
Willows symbolize spring, parting, and nostalgia in Chinese poetry. In ancient times, friends would break off a willow branch (折柳 zhéliǔ) to give as a farewell gift, because 柳 sounds like 留 (liú, to stay).
history
柳宗元 (Liǔ Zōngyuán) was one of the great Tang dynasty writers. The surname 柳 ranks among the top 100 Chinese surnames.
Left tree radical — pictograph of a tree with branches and roots. The indexing radical, marking 柳 as a kind of tree: the willow, famous for its drooping branches and association with parting in classical poetry (折柳送别). Same radical groups 柳 with 松 (pine), 桃 (peach), 杨 (poplar), 桂 (cassia).
Right 卯 supplies the sound — mǎo shifting to liǔ through historical m/l alternation in this lexical family (also seen in 留 liú from same root). 卯 originally depicted two halves of a split tally or open gate, and is now the 4th earthly branch in the zodiac (rabbit). Same phonetic feeds 留 (stay), 刘 (a surname), 昴 (Pleiades), 锚 (anchor — variant link).
