The Chinese character for boat (chuan 2) consists of the boat radical
on the left and a phonetic element on the right. The phonetic element
has two parts. The upper part is a primitive ideograph for "divide,"
though it looks the same as the character for "eight." The lower part
is the pictograph for "mouth." However, these two elements have only
phonetic significance (Wright 1996; Wright n.d.).
The "vessel" on the left side of the glyph is a pictograph of a dugout
canoe, nothing like an ark.
According to the Bible, Noah's ark carried very many more than eight
mouths.
No flood myths from China include an ark with eight passengers.
