Between the very many japanese ideograms that tickle my mind, some of the most interesting are in the sequence shown in the following picture. The two ideograms on the left written together form the one on the right that means "field".
The other two by each other mean "fire" and "rice paddy". It's a very peculiar combination if we consider the conceptual sequence of the symbols: first it comes the fire in order to make a field from the rice paddy. This clearly points to some sort of ancient agricultural practice and in fact, in some places in Japan, at the end of the harvest season, farmers still traditionally burn rice husks on their rice paddy. They pile up all the husks in a steep mound and then set it on fire lighting it up from the top so that most of it turns into husk charcoal biochar, ready to spread on the field. This is believed to give back to the soil the silica and the nutrients that are needed to grow rice the following year.
