Say it with a smiley

Expressions of emotions

There is an age-old phrase in Chinese, established in the days when people used to write letters on paper to one another－jianzi rumian (meaning "seeing my handwriting is like seeing me in person").

However, as computers and the internet have developed, they have gradually replaced ink, pen and paper.

Unlike handwriting, which could not help revealing one's personality through stroke and style－and even the conveyance of emotion through the strokes of the pen－the expressive force of standardized characters aligned on the display screen is much more limited.

Chen Ruo, 21, from Jilin province, thinks emoji characters complement the writing language. He uses them to inject life into the detached digital words.

He is used to typing quickly and speaking in short sentences, and the habit can cause his tone and manner to be misinterpreted by the recipient of his message, especially his girlfriend.

Chen claims that she used to complain a lot about his emotionless responses while chatting through phone messaging apps.

"My code of language somehow annoys her. She doesn't accept 'OK' as a response; she says it means I want her to leave me alone. So she would ignore me for an hour because she thought that's what I needed," he explains, "so I would use the word 'okay' or 'okie', which does not sit comfortably within my style of writing."

He considers emojis and stickers to be the solution.

"To her, the cute or funny stickers or emojis I choose to insert in the conversation reflect how much attention I pay to her. I know the idea is kind of childish, but emojis do make the conversation more relaxing and interesting, both for her and for me."

To some extent, Xu Bin, 53, from Zhejiang province, who also often uses emojis on social media, agrees with Chen.

"Words are not always capable of expressing something subtle, such as one's emotions or deep thoughts," Xu says.

"Social networking is getting closer to face-to-face communication with the support of developing technology."

He adds that emojis and stickers help to project one another's facial expressions.