Richmondites are invited to vote for the Chinese character that best sums up the year of 2023 as the Chinese New Year approaches.
It is the second year the Gendo Asian Art Foundation has hosted the event and last year’s event received nearly 90,000 votes. The Chinese character that received the most votes in 2022 was inflation (漲).
This year, the foundation selected 12 characters for people to vote for. These are computer chip (芯), artificial intelligence (智), waste (污), rent (租), interest rate (息), communication (通), unfinished homes (爛), recession (衰), real estate (房), concern (憂), war (戰) and hope (盼).
Waste (污) refers to the treated nuclear wastewater that the Japanese government started to release into the ocean this year.
Unfinished Homes (爛) indicates the large number of pre-sold homes in China that are unfinished or delayed due to broken capital chains, resulting in tens of thousands of unit buyers not being able to move into a home they paid for.
People can vote for one to three characters or nominate other characters that are not included in the 12 selected characters.
Chak Au, Richmond city councillor and chairman of the Gendo Asian Art Foundation, said the Chinese character of the year vote was first stared by the Japan Kanji Aptitude Testing Foundation in 1995.
Other countries participating in the event include the U.S., Singapore, China, Korea and Malaysia.
To vote or nominate other characters, call or text 1-604-636-8452, email [email protected] or message WeChat ID 245145218.
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