How to Write 蕹 (wèng) — Meaning “water spinach”

Imagine a water spinach plant with a "won" sound: the top grass (艹) looks like leaves, and the lower part 雍 sounds like "weng" as in "won" (like winning a prize). This helps link the shape to its pinyin and meaning.

The top grass radical 艹 should be written wide enough to cover the lower part, using three horizontal strokes (first, third, fourth) and two verticals. A common mistake is making the 艹 too narrow or forgetting that the lower 雍 has a balanced structure with a dot on the right side.

蕹 means water spinach and contains 雍 (wèng), while 蒟 (jǔ) and 蒻 (ruò) are components of 蒟蒻 (konjac). Visually, 蒟 has 句 (jù) under the grass radical, and 蒻 has 弱 (ruò), so focus on the different lower parts to tell them apart.

蕹 is used mainly in culinary contexts, especially in southern Chinese cuisine, where 蕹菜 (water spinach) is stir-fried or added to soups. It is a common vegetable in Guangdong and Southeast Asia, but the character is rare in everyday writing because the simplified version is often written as 空心菜.

Common words containing 蕹 include: 蕹菜 (wèng cài) — water spinach; 炒蕹菜 (chǎo wèng cài) — stir-fried water spinach; 鲜蕹 (xiān wèng) — Fresh water spinach.