観 - A Bird's Eye VIEW

Readings & Meanings:

カン

view

Common Usage:

観光客

観察日記

観音様

Examples:

京都は観光客でいっぱいだ。

カブトムシの観察日記をつける。

先週、観音様にお参りに行った。

Translations:

Kyoto is filled with tourists.

I'm keeping an observation journal on the Rhinoceros beetle.

Last week, we went to visit the Kannon shrine (and pray).

Radical:

見 is the radical.

On the left, we have the phonetic element. It's a simplification of the element in 觀.

In that former form, the left-hand element has 艸 (grass), two 口 (mouths), and 隹 (short, squat bird). So think of a flock of these birds crying in a marsh.

But now the grass and the mouths have simplified down, almost as if you were looking down at them from a bird's-eye view. Think of 観 as viewing objects in a "circular sweep."

References:

http://www.kanjinetworks.com/indices/radindex.html
http://www.thejapanesepage.com/node/kanji/7.htm