Chinese characters are used not only in China but also in Japan and other Chinese speaking countries like Singapore and Malaysia.
Chinese characters are logograms. In Japan, the Chinese character is called “Kanji” – which means “word from Han (Chinese)”. In 1995, the Japanese Kanji Proficiency Society started publishing “the Kanji of the Year” on 12 December (Kanji Day). They choose one “Kanji” to present the past year.
China followed Japan to announce the annual “Chinese Character” in 2006 and other areas started their own “Annual Chinese Character” in order: Taiwan (2008), Malaysia (2011), Singapore (2011), Macau (2012) and Hong Kong (2013). In 2017, one American organisation published their “Annual Chinese Character” as well.
Most of the “Annual Chinese Character) was chosen by the people to reflect or summarise their thought about the past year. Only China announce the “Annual Chinese Character” by the government.
Let’s have a look at the Chinese characters of 2018:
| Country/Area | Character | Meaning |
| Japan | 灾 | Disaster |
| China | 奋 | Strive |
| Taiwan | 翻 | Flip |
| Malaysia | 变 | Change |
| Singapore | 马 | Malaysia |
| Hong Kong | 顺 | Smooth |
| America | 战 | Fight |
If you want to know why these Chinese characters were chosen, please click on the name of the country and find out more.
Besides the Chinese character chosen by the Chinese government, Chinese netizens elected a NEW Chinese character which is combined with “Poor” (穷-穷-Qiong）and “Ugly” （丑-Chou). The suggested new pronunciation is “Qiou”. Below is the picture of this new character. Click here to read more.
Want to know more about Chinese characters and learn Mandarin?
Have a look at our 2019 Chinese & Japanese classes in Brisbane.