As the Lunar New Year approaches, the Richmond community is invited to vote for the Chinese character that best sums up 2024.
This is the third year the Richmond-based Gendo Asian Art Foundation is asking the public to choose a representative character.
After more than 40,000 votes were cast, the Chinese character for 2023 was "rent" (租), which reflected the rise in housing costs and interest rates, as well as the impact on the quality of life for Canadians.
The foundation adopted the tradition of choosing a Chinese character of the year from the Japanese Kanji (Chinese character) Proficiency Society.
When a character is selected in Japan, it is usually written by the abbot of Kiyomizu-dera Temple and is displayed for one year.
This year, the Gendo Asian Art Foundation selected 12 characters for people to vote for. These are gold (金), change (变), moving backwards (退), transform (换), to watch (望), vague (茫), fear (惶), poverty (穷), closing the door (闭), happy (欣), complex (繁) and mirror (镜).
Closing the door (闭) refers to the Canadian government's tightening of immigration and refugee policies in the second half of 2024 and the exclusion of international students.
Mirror (镜) refers to the expression of people's review and reflection on the progress of science and technology.
Each voter can choose up to three characters from the list and can also recommend up to three characters that are not on the list.
A last name, province and city of residence must be given to have votes counted.
To vote, call or text 778-919-1172, email [email protected], online at aagrichmond.org, WeChat message ID 245145218 or message the Wechat mini program ID neolithicartgallery.
Voting ends at 8 a.m. on Jan. 31 with results to be announced on Feb. 1
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