开关升并廾

It is useful sometimes to study characters as related visual groups rather than as related phonemes. This is because Chinese characters are much less phonetically determined than Western scripts.
All of these characters are also semantically related.

开kai1

open
image: a barred pair of gates. you must lift open the top bar to open them.

关guan1

switch, close
image: a mountain pass guarded with a sentry post. By extension: close, switch (off) 天 sky, day.

廾gong3

to grasp with two hands

升sheng1

to lift up with both hands thus by extension ascend raise promote

并bing4

and, moreover