To find a Mr./Mrs. Right? To get rich? To be healthy or happy?...Guess which is the most popular Chinese New Year wish? An app is inviting people to write just one Chinese character to represent their wish for the New Year.
With New Year just around the corner, millions of WeChat users are sharing their choice of character on their profiles. The app, produced by China Central Television News, also gives a real-time ranking of the top 10 most wishes.
The most popular character is "kang" -- health. Over 670,000 people chose it in the first 24 hours. While health is often mentioned in New Year's greetings, its ranking perhaps reflects growing health concerns in China, air pollution, unhealthy lifestyles, obesity and stress have put people's health at greater risk.
A report in U.S. journal "CA: A Cancer Journal for Clinicians" warns that China faces "huge challenges" from cancer in coming years. About 2.8 million Chinese died from cancer in 2015, 7,500 every day.
Besides "kang", other popular characters are "fu" -- good fortune, "le" -- happiness, "an" -- safety and "ji" -- luck.
"Love" only made it onto the list in seventh place. Houses and better salaries are also high on the wish list, perhaps reflecting how rising house prices have greatly outpaced growth of incomes, or perhaps the character "zhang" (rise) simply shows that millions of investors are hoping to recoup last year's stock market losses.
Ranking last on the top 10 is the character "shou" -- thin. Obesity has become a real problem in China. More than 30 percent of Chinese adults were overweight in 2012, a third more than a decade ago, according to the Chinese National Health and Family Planning Commission.
It seems that many Chinese are determined to change their lifestyles and eating habits in the coming year in the hope of feeling healthier and fitter.
