Jiong () is a once obscure

Chinese character Chinese characters are logographs used to write the Chinese languages and others from regions historically influenced by Chinese culture. Of the four independently invented writing systems accepted by scholars, they represent the only on ...

meaning a "patterned window". Since 2008, it has become an internet phenomenon and widely used to express

embarrassment Embarrassment or awkwardness is an emotional state that is associated with mild to severe levels of discomfort, and which is usually experienced when someone commits (or thinks of) a socially unacceptable or frowned-upon act that is witnessed ...

and

gloom Gloom is a low level of light which is so dim that there are physiological and psychological effects. Human vision at this level becomes monochrome and has lessened clarity. Optical and psychological effects Light conditions may be considered g ...

because of the character's resemblance to a sad facial expression. It has historically been used as a Chinese dictionary radical and has ''Shuowen Jiezi'' number 240, but it is not included among the ''Kangxi'' radicals, nor by the ''

Table of Indexing Chinese Character Components ''The Table of Indexing Chinese Character Components'' () is a lexicography, lexicographic tool used to order the Chinese characters in mainland China. The specification is also known as GF 0011-2009. In China's normative documents, "radical" is ...

''.

Original meanings

# Window, according to

Xu Shen Xu Shen () was a Chinese calligrapher, philologist, politician, and writer of the Eastern Han dynasty (25–189 CE). During his own lifetime, Xu was recognized as a preeminent scholar of the Five Classics. He was the author of ''Shuowen Jiezi'' ...

's 2nd-century dictionary ''

Shuowen Jiezi The ''Shuowen Jiezi'' is a Chinese dictionary compiled by Xu Shen , during the Eastern Han dynasty (25–220 CE). While prefigured by earlier reference works for Chinese characters like the ''Erya'' (), the ''Shuowen Jiezi'' contains the ...

'': "窻牖麗廔闓明" ('an open and light window'). # Granary. 米囧 means "put the new rice into a granary". # Sacrificial place. Based on Chouli. # Toponym.

Characters with Shuowen radical 240

Internet emoticon

The character for ''jiong'' is nowadays more widely used on the Internet as an ideographic emoticon representing a range of moods, as it resembles a person's face. It is commonly used to express ideas or feelings such as annoyance, shock, embarrassment, awkwardness, etc. The use of ''jiong'' as an emoticon can be traced to 2005 or earlier; it was referenced on 20 January 2005 in a Chinese-language article on Orz. The character is sometimes used in conjunction with orz, OTZ, or its other variants to form "囧rz", representing a person on their hands and knees (''jiong'' forming the face, while ''r'' and ''z'' represent arms and legs, respectively) and symbolising despair or failure.

Encoding

The character is included in Unicode at ( 囧). Unicode also includes U+518F ( 冏), which is considered a variant.

References

Bibliography

* * *{{cite book , last1=Ru , first1=Xin , last2=Lu , first2=Xueyi , last3=Li , first3=Peilin , title=The China Society Yearbook , url=https://books.google.com/books?id=7ecJc4PhmqUC&pg=PA311 , date=25 March 2010 , publisher=BRILL , isbn=978-90-04-18221-9 Emoticons Chinese words and phrases Chinese character components