Kanji Symbol Ice in Chinese / Japanese...

冰 is the Chinese character used to express “ice” or “frost.”

The main part of the character on the right holds the meaning of “water” and on the left, is a radical (the two dots) that also means water. Together, they create the character that means “ice” (solid water).

This is similar to the character for frost in Japanese. However, Japanese drop the radical from the left side.

冰 is the Japanese Kanji for “ice” or “frost.”

冰 is also the way to write “ice” in old Korean Hanja.

Note: This form is not commonly used anymore in Chinese - though still understood for the most part.

FYI: There was a time when Japan did not have a written language and simply absorbed Chinese characters into their language by meaning. When this occurred around the 5th century, the character shown here was a common but alternate way to write “ice” in Chinese, so it was the one that ended up being absorbed into the Japanese language. Not long after that, a similar thing happened in Korea - although Korea has replaced virtually all of the Chinese characters they once used with the new Hangul writing system.

溜冰 is the Chinese title for the sport and activity of ice skating.

氷滑り is the Japanese title for the sport and activity of ice skating.

冰球 is the Chinese title for the sport of ice hockey.

Sometimes this can refer to just the puck, depending on context.

ホッケー is the Japanese word for hockey.

ホッケー is a generic term and can be ice or field hockey.

Note: Because this title is entirely Japanese Katakana, it should be written by a Japanese calligrapher.

強 is a character that means strong, strength, force, powerful, better, stubborn, and stiff (yes, all of this in one character).

This “strong” has less to do with physical strength and more to do with having a winning attitude, or just having the ability to win at something.

Note that most of the time, this character is pronounced “qiang” but when used with the meaning of stubborn, unyielding, or stiff, it is pronounced “jiang” in Chinese.

Also, sometimes “qiang” is used in modern Chinese to describe people that do crazy things (For example: Bicycling from Beijing to Tibet alone). I sometimes can be found outside my Beijing apartment wearing nothing but shorts and a tee-shirt while eating ice cream during a snow storm, just to hear my neighbors call me “qiang.” Maybe they mean “strong” but perhaps they are using the new meaning of “crazy strong.”

強 can also be a Chinese surname that romanizes as Jiang in the mainland or Chiang if from Taiwan.

強 is a valid Korean Hanja character with the same meaning but is mostly used in compound Korean words.

強 is used in Japanese (though normally in compound words). In Japanese, it has the same meaning but in some contexts can mean “a little more than...” or “a little over [some amount].” Most Japanese would read this as tough, strength, stiff, hard, inflexible, obstinate, or stubborn.

The variant 彊 is sometimes seen in older literature.