We have many options to create artwork with Hope characters on a wall scroll or portrait.
If you want to create a cool Hope Asian character tattoo, you can purchase that here:
Asian / Chinese / Japanese Tattoo Image Template Service
...and we'll give you many tattoo image templates of the ancient Asian symbols that express the idea of hope.
Quick links to words on this page...


Besides "to hope" this also means "to wish for" or "to desire". It can also mean expectation or aspiration depending on context.
Note: Also considered to be one of the Seven Heavenly Virtues.

This is one of those single characters that is vague, but in that vagueness, in also means many things. This character holds the ideas of ambition, hope, desire, aspiring to, expectations, looking towards, to gaze (into the distance), and in some context full moon rising.
This is a whole word in Chinese and old Korean, but is seldom seen alone in Japanese. Still, it holds the meanings noted above in all three languages.


This Chinese word can mean desirous, wishful, or simply desire.
The first character means to thirst for something, or to be thirsty. The second character means to hope for, to expect, to gaze (into the distance) or to look for something. The combined meaning of these two characters changes a bit, but I think it's nice to know the individual meanings to give you a better understanding of where a word comes from.
Korean definitions of this word include craving, longing and thirst for knowledge.

This character means desire, longing, appetite, wish, covetousness, greed, passion, desire, avarice, and craving.
This word is universal in Chinese, Japanese Kanji, and Korean Hanja.
The context in which this character is used, determines whether the meaning is good or bad. As a single character on a wall scroll, you get to decide what the definition is to you (hopefully more toward desire than greed).


The first character of this word means desire, longing, hunger, covetousness, greed, passion, desire, craving, or wish. The second character means to hope for, ambition, to desire, to aspire, to expect, to gaze (into the distance) or to look for something.
Together, they create a word that means strong desire, while some might translate it as "lust".


This means desire, wish, or aspiration in Chinese and Japanese.




The first character means "eternal" or "forever", the second means "not" (together they mean "never"). The last two characters mean "give up" or "abandon". Altogether, you can translate this phrase as "never give up" or "never abandon".
Depending on how you want to read this, it is also a statement that you will never abandon your hopes, dreams, family or friends.







Characters shown
above are read
vertically, starting
from the right
This is a Japanese term that informally means "never give up".
See Also... Tenacity | Perseverance
Wall scroll artwork shown on this page is priced as follows:
1 character $29.88 each
2-3 characters $39.88 each
4 characters $49.88 each
5-10 characters $59.88 each
After you select your calligraphy, our website will take you through the process of customizing your artwork.
Options for other mounting such as portraits are available for $13 less.
We also offer the services of a famous master calligrapher for a $40 fee on any scroll if you are looking for investment-quality calligraphy.
If you chose our famous master-calligrapher, you also get more choices for silk and paper colors and the option for larger artwork.
All of our calligraphy is completely done by hand in the ancient way.
When the calligrapher finishes creating your artwork, it is taken to our art mounting workshop in Beijing where a wall scroll is made by hand from a combination of silk, rice paper, and wood.
After we create your wall scroll, it takes at least two weeks for air mail delivery from Beijing to you.
Therefore, allow at least 3 weeks for delivery from the time you place your order.
When you select your calligraphy, you'll be taken to another page where you can choose various custom options.
The scroll that I am holding in this picture is a "regular size"
4-character wall scroll.
As you can see, it is a great size to hang on your wall.
(We also offer custom wall scrolls in larger sizes)
Professional calligraphers are getting to be hard to find these days.
Instead of drawing characters by hand, the new generation in China merely type roman letters into their computer keyboards and pick the character that they want from a list that pops up.
There is some fear that true Chinese calligraphy may become a lost art in the coming years. Many art institutes in China are now promoting calligraphy programs in hopes of keeping this unique form
of art alive.
Even with the teachings of a top-ranked calligrapher in China, my calligraphy will never be good enough to sell. I will leave that to the experts.
The same calligrapher who gave me those lessons also attracted a crowd of thousands and a TV crew as he created characters over 6-feet high. He happens to be ranked as one of the top 100 calligraphers in all of China. He is also one of very few that would actually attempt such a feat.
The following table is only helpful for those studying Chinese (or Japanese), and perhaps helps search engines to find this page when someone enters Romanized Chinese or Japanese
| Title | Characters Simplified Traditional |
Japanese Romaji (Romanized Japanese) | Various forms of Hanyu-Pinyin (Romanized Chinese) | |||
| Hope | 希望 希望 | ki bou kibou ki bo | xī wàng xi wang | xi1 wang4 xiwang | ||
| Great Expectations | 望 望 | bou / nozo bou/nozo bo / nozo | wàng wang | wang4 wang | ||
| Desire | 渴望 渴望 | n/a | kě wàng ke wang | ke3 wang4 kewang | ||
| Desire / Longing / Craving | 欲 慾 | yoku | yù yu | yu4 yu | ||
| Desire / Craving | 欲望 欲望 | yokubou yokubo | yù wàng yu wang | yu4 wang4 yuwang | ||
| Desire / Wish / Aspiration | 愿望 願望 | gan bou ganbou gan bo | yuàn wàng yuan wang | yuan4 wang4 yuanwang | ||
| Never Give Up | 永不放弃 永不放棄 | n/a | yǒng bù fàng qì yong bu fang qi | yong3 bu4 fang4 qi4 yongbufangqi | ||
| Never Give In / Never Succomb / Never Lose / (Japanese Only) | 決して諦めるな 決して諦めるな | kesshite akirameruna kesshiteakirameruna keshite akirameruna | n/a | |||
| If you have not set up your computer to display Chinese, the characters in this table probably look like empty boxes or random text garbage.
This is why we spent hundreds of hours making images so that you could view the characters in the "Hope" listings above. If you want your Windows computer to be able to display Chinese characters you can either head to your Regional and Language options in your Win XP control panel, select the [Languages] tab and click on [Install files for East Asian Languages]. This task will ask for your Win XP CD to complete in most cases. If you don't have your Windows XP CD, or are running Windows 98, you can also download/run the simplified Chinese font package installer from Microsoft which works independently with Win 98, ME, 2000, and XP. It's a 2.5MB download, so if you are on dial up, start the download and go make a sandwich. | ||||||
All custom calligraphy items are made-to-order in our little Beijing artwork-mounting workshop.
Normal delivery isjust over 3 weeksfor these handmade items.
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