初 - FIRST, Cut the Cloth

Readings & Meanings:

うい

しょ

はつ

そ（める）

はじめ

first, beginning

Common Usage:

初（ウブ）

初日の出

初めて

Examples:

私が１８歳のころはまだ初だった。　

お正月には初日の出を見に行った。

「初めてお目にかかります鈴木です。今後とも宜しくお願いします。」

Translations:

When I was 18 years old, I was still naive.

On New Year's, we went to see the first sunrise of the year.

"I'm very pleased to meet you; my name is Suzuki."

Radicals:

If you look carefully, you'll see that the radical on the left is nothing like 礻. Not even a little. See that extra dot we've got in the middle? That's how you know this radical is a scrunched form of 衣, which we know to be for clothing.

We've also got the "Katana" radical, 刀. This pictograph of a sword next to the clothing radical says (according to Kanji Networks) that the first step in making clothes is to cut the material. Fair enough.

Important:

始めまして or 初めまして? More on this later. For now, it seems that you can use either interchangeably for the greeting "hajimemashite."

References:

http://www.kanjinetworks.com/snetwork/SAG.html#SAG04
http://www.thejapanesepage.com/kanji/kanji/u.htm