# Ninja -- kanji hanzi help

**URL:** <https://boards.straightdope.com/t/ninja-kanji-hanzi-help/181091>\
**Category:** Factual Questions\
**Created:** [June 11, 2003, 1:06pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/ninja-kanji-hanzi-help/181091 "2003-06-11T13:06:06Z")\
**Posts on this page:** 5\
**Page:** 1

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**Author:** ![\_xiao\_wenti](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/_/b782af/32.png) [@\_xiao\_wenti](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/_xiao_wenti)\
**Post date:** [June 11, 2003, 1:06pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/ninja-kanji-hanzi-help/181091/1 "2003-06-11T13:06:06Z")

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I was talking to my son yesterday about Ninja. I was curious about the the kanji for ninja. I found it and in chinese the pinyin is ren(4)zhe. Which I have translated as tolerating/enduring. I was wondering 1. am I correct in my interpretation 2. what does the kanji mean and 3. Is it in use in Chinese.

Xie Xie

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**Author:** ![Ravenman](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/ravenman/32/2929_2.png) [@Ravenman](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Ravenman)\
**Post date:** [June 11, 2003, 1:18pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/ninja-kanji-hanzi-help/181091/2 "2003-06-11T13:18:06Z")

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According to [www.zhongwen.com](http://www.zhongwen.com), ninja is ren(3)zhe(3). Ren(3) is a verb that does indeed mean to endure, but the character can also be seen as illustrating “a blade in the heart.” You can see that the upper part of ren(3) is ren(4), as in a pointed blade, and the lower part is xin(1), as in heart.

Hope that’s helpful.

Bu ke qi.

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**Author:** ![Bippy\_the\_Beardless](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/ac8455/32.png) [@Bippy\_the\_Beardless](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Bippy_the_Beardless)\
**Post date:** [June 11, 2003, 3:46pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/ninja-kanji-hanzi-help/181091/3 "2003-06-11T15:46:33Z")

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According to the ‘supposedly’ practitioner of Ninjutsu Massaki Hatsumi in his several books on the subject. The charactes are meant to be interpreted in several ways. So Ninjutsu (and btw Shinobijutsu is another way of saying the same characters) can mean the way of endurance. This can bo to the history/mythology of the Ninjas being a group of mountain warriors who refused to be ruled by any Samurai or Damyo and so endured issolation from rulership. ‘Blade in the heart’ is not correct (according to Hatsumi) it is instead Blade and Heart indicating warrior spirit. This seems reasonable as the association of Ninja to Assassination is an invention of much later Kabuki stories.

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**Author:** ![Ravenman](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/ravenman/32/2929_2.png) [@Ravenman](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Ravenman)\
**Post date:** [June 11, 2003, 7:16pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/ninja-kanji-hanzi-help/181091/4 "2003-06-11T19:16:11Z")

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> [@](#):
>
> \*Originally posted by Bippy the Beardless \*  
> \*\*This can bo to the history/mythology of the Ninjas being a group of mountain warriors who refused to be ruled by any Samurai or Damyo and so endured issolation from rulership. ‘Blade in the heart’ is not correct (according to Hatsumi) it is instead Blade and Heart indicating warrior spirit. This seems reasonable as the association of Ninja to Assassination is an invention of much later Kabuki stories. \*\*

All within the realm of possibility. [This site](http://starling.rinet.ru/cgi-bin/response.cgi?flags=eyggnn&table=0&basename=%5cdata%5cchina%5cbigchina&text_character=%A7%D4&method_character=beginning&sort=character) gives an alternative translation as to “be unfeeling, callous, unscrupulous.”

[Here](http://www.csse.monash.edu.au/cgi-bin/cgiwrap/jwb/wwwjdic?1MKU5FCD) the definition is more along the lines of the first: “bear; put up with; conceal; secrete; spy; sneak.” This is from a Japanese website.

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**Author:** ![\_xiao\_wenti](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/_/b782af/32.png) [@\_xiao\_wenti](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/_xiao_wenti)\
**Post date:** [June 12, 2003, 2:50pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/ninja-kanji-hanzi-help/181091/5 "2003-06-12T14:50:11Z")

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Thanks for the help all. I have asked Chinese and Japanese co-workers and they translate it as “secret person”. That russian website Corvus-person is cool. I’ll have to check out how to use it.