Love in Chinese Characters

In Japan, it seems everyone needs to buy chocolate as St. Valentine's Day on February 14 closes.

Fancy chocolate products are displayed at not only convenience stores but also department stores. It used to be a day for girls who would confess their love to their special someone by presenting chocolate.

However, now people would give chocolate to anyone such as 友チョコ, tomo choco: chocolate for friends. Moreover ご褒美チョコ, gohobi choco, has become popular: chocolate for myself as a reward.

Anyway, it may be time to think about love. Love is difficult to define, don't you think?

For example here are differences between two Chinese characters of love.

愛 ai is the most common Chinese character to mean love. Even though my dictionary doesn't say so, I have heard this character consists of two parts : a heart and receipt. In this sense, 愛 is accepting one's heart. It does make sense to me:)

仁  jin or hito expresses love too, and it covers a wider concept. This character has two parts 人 and 二 and it means a person and two respectively. This character indicates a state of mind a person naturally would have when he/she is with another person. 

It can be affection, compassion, humanity and more depending on the situation. Confucius emphasized it as one of the important values. 

The current Japanese emperor and crown prince have this character in their names: 明仁 akihito and 徳仁 naruhito.

If you come to Japan this time of year, shopping for chocolate can be fun!