It’s interesting psychology that when you reveal an inner self to someone, you somehow after the act find an anger, an irritation and shyness in yourself against the someone.

害羞, I looked at the chinese dictionary, ‘shy’ is a word that could also be called ‘ashamed’, it means to feel embarrassed, it can also be embarrassing if you feel uneasy because of timidity, fear of strangers or fear of being laughed at; fear of your shortcomings being exposed in the sun will make others look down on yourself; ordinary people can also be afraid, shy people are mentally sensitive and are overly scared, you will feel blushing, rapid heartbeat and other normal reactions.

While the English word ‘shy’ mainly comes from “to shun”, the Chinese equivalent 害羞 has a more amusing origin and implies a more layered, complex meaning.

The first part 害 means no less than “injure, damage”, and where this injure comes from? 口 the mouth(words). Which mouth? The mouth under a roof 宀. And those words that start at home is seen as a source of injure and damage (the Chinese knows the importance of maintaining the peace at home.)

害, starting from its original sense of “injure, damage”, evolves into several other meanings: to kill, to murder 杀害; be shy, be afraid of 害怕，害羞.

The second part 羞, you would never guess, comes from the image of a hand holding a sheep: the ancient custom of paying tribute to the ruler. And it originally only means “to pay tribute to”.

Later, as the hand at some point for some reason turned into 丑 “ugliness”, the meaning “shame, shy, mock, insult” comes in.

So there are lots of feelings mixed together in this one word 害羞. And ultimately, it’s not the someone you are against, it’s about you and yourself. It’s the fear of exposure, the anticipated hurt of might be laughed at: it’s a feeling we are all familiar with. Who among us could say he is completely comfortable with himself and have never experienced 害羞?