Tang Xiaonan's eyes darted about. Glancing at the newspaper, she casually pointed to the two characters in the headline for the solar term *Jingzhe*. She held the paper out to Jim Thorne and asked, "What do these two words say?"
Full of confidence, Jim Thorne looked where his sister's chubby finger was pointing. He recognized the first character. "Startle…"
He drew out the word "Startle" for a long moment, completely stumped by the second character. He wondered if he should guess based on its top half or its bottom half.
Whenever Jim Thorne encountered a character he didn't recognize, he had an excellent solution: read one of its components.
This method worked nine times out of ten.
The only exception was when he couldn't recognize any of the parts, in which case he had to take a wild guess.
"Startle what?" Tang Xiaonan prodded.
"Startle-insect. That's what it is."
