The wild goose is a major figure in classical Chinese poetry, symbolizing autumn melancholy, long journeys, and homesick travelers — because flocks fly long distances in V-formation across the seasons. Yields phrases like 雁阵 (yànzhèn — V-formation), 鸿雁 (hóngyàn — wild swan goose, also a poetic name for letters/messages).
memory
The character 雁 contains 隹 (zhuī — a short-tailed bird) on the right and a roof-like shape on top, with 亻 (man) inside — picture geese in V-formation under a sheltering sky.
Cliff-overhang radical wrapping the upper-left corner — pictures a rocky escarpment. In 雁 it sets the scene: geese roost and migrate along cliffs and craggy shorelines. Same shape appears in 厉, 厌, 原. The whole char is indexed under Kangxi #172 隹 (zhuī), the short-tailed-bird radical tucked inside under the cliff.
phonetic
倠suī
person + short-tailed bird (fused unit)
Inside the cliff sits 亻 plus the short-tailed-bird radical 隹 — together a rare combined glyph that supplies the sound (yàn) through historical drift. The 隹 inside is the indexing semantic for any 雁-family bird; the 亻 tucked beside it has been read traditionally as a phonetic hint pointing to 人 rén.
Filed under radical 隹 (zhuī, #172) by convention. 隹 is not a separate component in 雁, so no strokes are highlighted.
