Radical 氵

5 strokes

漢

water 氵 (78a) + right hand 又 (52) = Han Chinese 汉

The Han Chinese are the majority ethnic group in China.

汉语 (68) Hànyǔ Chinese (language)

They sprinkle water on their right hands before shaking hands to demonstrate that they are Han Chinese. / The dwarf is reaching up his hand so that he can be included (because he doesn’t like to miss out on things).

This very common fragment is an abbreviation of the character 水 which we’ll meet later (Character 523) — it takes this form when appearing as the left-hand part of composite characters. Note that the final stroke is written in an upwards direction.