Walk like an Egyptian. Do as the Romans. How about text like the Asians?

Emoticons — the use of punctuation marks to make shapes and facial expressions — used to be simple. The original was just a sideways smiley face, which we all know:   🙂

But in Asia, which has infinitely more complicated keyboards, emoticons take on a whole new art form. The most intricate come from Japan and Korea, but the fad is now widespread, with each Asian language using its own inputs to make new faces. The most noticeable difference is that the faces are not sideways with the usual  🙂  but facing front, using more punctuation marks to make a whole face.

So if you’re ready to take your smileys to the level of the far out far east, check these faces out…

(>_<)             angry face

(´･_･`)          worried

(◎_◎;)         dazed and confused (and the semi colon is a drip of sweat!)

(*_*)               dead or unconscious

( ^_^)／         waving

m(_ _)m        apologising (a person bowing)

d^_^b            listening to music (with headphones)

(^_~)              winking

(._.)                 disappointed

[ (－－) ]        sleeping (with head on a pillow)

(-_-)                 feeling down

^_^                 generally happy

v(^_^)v         hooray! celebrating

T_T                 crying (tears dripping)

(･_･?)            confused again!

 

And the list goes on and on, too many to list here. But they’re pretty cute, right?

So how do you feel today? Right now it’s about 10 pm in Hong Kong, which means it’s time to ［(－－) ］Zzzzzzz……