Persimmon

柿 means persimmon: the tree or its fruit.

In Mandarin, 柿 and 事 are pronounced alike; in Japanese, 柿 is read as the ordinary word for persimmon. The graph combines 木, the tree marker, with 市, a sound component. The Eastern Han dictionary Shuowen Jiezi records an older form, 枾; that shows the character existed by then, not when it first arose.

Persimmon seeds have been found in Japanese remains from the Jōmon period. A cultivated form like the modern persimmon is generally described as reaching Japan from China in the Nara period. By the Heian period, dried persimmons were preserved food and ritual offerings.

Why does 柿柿如意 sound like a blessing?

Because 柿 sounds like 事 in Mandarin.

In a Chinese greeting, gift, or decorative inscription, 柿柿如意 uses two persimmons to echo 事事如意: “may everything go as you wish.” The repeated character cues the phrase. A museum record for a 1976 painting describes four persimmons as this pun and says the motif was common in Chinese painting.

A Japanese reader does not automatically get the pun: 柿 normally names the fruit in Japanese. Look for clear Chinese-language context before reading it as a blessing.

柿 vs 杮: which is persimmon?

柿 is persimmon; 杮 is a different Japanese character.

The right side differs: 柿 uses 市, while 杮 uses the similar-looking 巿. 杮 means a wood shaving or shingle; in 杮落とし, it appears in the Japanese term for a theater's opening performance. JIS X 0212 encoded 杮 separately in 1990, but JIS X 0208:1997 treated the pair as overlapping after a history of confusion. Some Japanese fonts still make them hard to tell apart.