The last character in my name is 毅, spelled yi; and yi happens to be the sound with the most possible matches in Chinese, with hundreds of characters spelled the same way (thanks, Mom and Dad).

Unversed in Chinese characters, they used fortune tellers and almanacs to decide my name based on the ideal number of strokes for each character, which was calculated for maximum auspiciousness.

Traditional Chinese groups all characters according to 214 radicals (simplified uses 189), which are organized based on number of strokes into a chart called the bushou. Each radical is itself a ...

The same is true of script reform. Chinese rulers recognized the diversity within Chinese characters. One common tactic for establishing control over the written language was to compile “books of ...

As one of the world’s oldest writing systems, Chinese characters have more than 3,000 years of history and spread to many parts of Asia. This script is made of logograms, a printed symbol ...