Results of the annual Chinese Pandian competition reveal the hottest characters, words, and phrases of the year
On December 20, winners of this year’s Chinese Pandian, a competition which selects the most representative words, phrases, and Chinese characters of the year, were announced: 治 (zhì, governance) and 建党百年 (jiàndǎng bǎinián, 100th anniversary of the founding of the Communist Part of China) were named the “hottest” character and phrase in the domestic category in 2021, while 疫 (yì, epidemic) and 元宇宙 (yuányǔzhòu, metaverse) won the international section.
Hosted by the National Language Resources Monitoring and Research Center, and The Commercial Press, a 124-year-old Chinese publishing house (and TWOC’s parent company), the annual Chinese Pandian competition in now in its 16th year.
The 2021 contest began on November 19, with the public invited to submit their picks for words that best summed up the year—thousands of entries flooded in through the websites of organizers and other cooperating platforms, including Guangming Daily, Tencent Video, and social media platforms WeChat and Weibo.
The winners were chosen via a public vote, held over 11 days, on five finalists for each category selected by a panel of experts, taking into account their frequency of use and influence in society.
Here are some of the hottest characters, words, and phrases that made it to this year’s Chinese Pandian finals:
Tan Yunfei is the editorial director of The World of Chinese. She reports on Chinese language, food, traditions, and society. Having grown up in a rural community and mainly lived in the cities since college, she tries to explore and better understand China's evolving rural and urban life with all readers.
