Chinese character for “love”

I just posted a new avatar. It’s the Chinese character for “love”.

“Ai,” the traditional Chinese character for love (?) consists of a heart (middle) inside of “accept,” “feel,” or “perceive,” which shows a graceful emotion. It can also be interpreted as a hand offering ones heart to another hand.

My avatar is the simplified version. The Chinese have been using the traditional characters for several thousand years. About 50 years ago the government of China changed the writing system. It was a stepping-stone towards eliminating characters and eventually replacing them with the Western Roman alphabet. Fortunately, this plan is no longer in place. However, simplified characters are here to stay.

Simplified characters are fewer in number and are designed to be easier to learn because the characters have fewer strokes. At this time, simplified characters are used officially in China and Singapore. The traditional characters are still in use in Taiwan, Hong Kong, Japan (as kanji), Korea (as hanja), and most Chinese communities in North America.

You can read more about simplified characters here.