When “食” fills a head
Why it is in the set
A joke generator has to be able to tell someone their head is mostly food, because for a lot of people on a lot of days it is. It needs no explanation in any language and nobody is offended by it. Of the 36, this is the one that most reliably makes people laugh at their own result, which is the whole point of the site.
What a head full of it looks like
Deciding what to eat while still eating. Rearranging the afternoon around a restaurant. The particular clarity of thought that arrives ten minutes after finally eating something. A head led by 食 is not a hungry head so much as a head where food is doing the scheduling.
Words that use it
食事 (shokuji, a meal), 外食 (gaishoku, eating out), 給食 (kyuushoku, school lunch), 食べ歩き (tabearuki, going from place to place eating), 食べ放題 (tabehoudai, all you can eat). Japanese has a lot of words for this because Japanese people talk about it a lot.
Kanji it turns up with
甘 (sweet things) and 酒 (drinking) are its neighbours in the set and often come second. A head with 食 on top and 忙 (busy) close behind is usually someone who has not stopped to eat properly, which the quip will generally point out.
Where “食” comes from
A pictograph: a lid over a vessel of grain. The top part is the cover, the bottom is the food piled inside. It is a bowl with the lid still on.
The same shape appears squashed on the left of other characters as 飠, which is why 飯 (cooked rice), 館 (a hall, originally a place that fed travellers) and 飾 (to decorate, once to garnish) all share it.
It is one of the first characters Japanese children learn to write, taught in the second year of primary school.
A line you might get for “食”
“Thinking about lunch. Was thinking about lunch during breakfast.”
Count the “食” in your own headOthers in “Appetites”
“食” is filed under “Appetites”. These are the rest of that group.
The 36 kanji
This is entirely a joke and has nothing to do with any real person.