The Chinese character 永 (yǒng), meaning “forever” or “permanence”, is often used to illustrate the 8 basic principles used to draw strokes that compose ideographic characters.

• This is a visualisation of the 8 principles used in writing Hanzi, Kanji, Kana, Hantu, and Hanja characters.
• The names of principles are: 1 点/點 diǎn; 2 横/橫 héng; 3 竖/豎 shù; 4 钩/鉤 gōu; 5 提 tí; 6 弯/彎 wān; 7 撇 piě; 8 捺 nà.
• The orders of each principles used to write the above character is given, but note that the character shown in fact has 5 strokes, composed of 8 principles: this is illustrated in the 8 principles orders. A plus sign (+) indicates where this occurs; for instance, the successive drawings of three (“2+”, “+3+” and “+4”) or two (“5+” and “+6”) of the eight principles each compose a single written stroke (where the pen does not leave the paper).