升 has two distinct uses: (1) to rise/ascend (升起 rise up, 升职 get promoted, 升级 level up); (2) liter as a unit of volume. Context makes the meaning clear.
culture
升旗仪式 (flag-raising ceremony) at 天安门 Square in 北京 is a daily event that attracts many visitors.
Indexed under the 十 radical by tradition, anchored on the upright cross formed by strokes 2 and 4. Originally a pictograph of a measuring ladle (one-tenth of a 斗), the modern silhouette has converged on a cross-like shape for dictionary lookup.
The opening left-falling stroke and the inner short horizontal together sketch the bowl and handle of the original ladle. They wrap around the central 十 mark and have fused into a non-decomposable two-stroke residue from the historical pictograph.
