黃
huang2: obviously should mean “robot”, but means “yellow” for some disturbing reason, perhaps implying that yellow Chinese people are all robots (actually huang2 zhong3 ren2 黃種人 is actually an old term for “Mongoloid”), or perhaps that Chinese are yellow (in the Back to the Future sense).
Good call with
囧
, actually a lot of people use this one in chat as an emoticon, since it looks like a sad face with a mouth. i.e. 
I’d have to throw in my vote for…
一
Which scholars may recognize as the character for “one”, a mathematical concept first invented by the Chinese in 600 B.C. It’s a beast to write but I still find it beautiful despite the complexities.
二 and 三 come in a close 2nd and third.
For those of you who used Dragon, oh my God that is so typical, well guess what I see your dragon and I’ll raise you two more. That’s right, THREE FUCKING DRAGONS. (and mine are red)
[color=#FF0000]龘[/color]
[quote=“drvelocity”]For those of you who used Dragon, oh my God that is so typical, well guess what I see your dragon and I’ll raise you two more. That’s right, THREE FUCKING DRAGONS. (and mine are red)
[color=#FF0000]龘[/color]
[/quote]
Don’t mess with the dragon, man.
I’ll see you three and raise you one.
zhe2, ‘loquacious’
Owned 
I’m partial to 亞 . Its so symmetrical and easy to identify. Sometimes it looks really nice, but that video store…I think its Asia One, butchers it in their logo.
[quote=“Dragonbones”]Don’t mess with the dragon, man.
I’ll see you three and raise you one.
zhe2, ‘loquacious’[/quote]
Does that make
無所不+zhe2 = Omniloquacious?
[color=#400000]元[/color] is my favorite.
I hate it. Its hard as fuck to write and its in my so-called “Chinese name,” which is why I NEVER use that name and refuse to acknowledge it. “What do you mean, my Chinese name? My parents never gave me one.”
If the nazis never existed, my favorite would be 卍 (wan4, ㄨㄢˋ)
山
looks like you’re giving someone the finger.
I would have to say that for right now, my favorite is 靈.
I love a lot of the complex ones. Here are some of them that I thought of off the top of my head.
I also agree with JFP, I will add 卍 to my list. Beautiful character. I don’t care if people associate it with Nazism, even though it was 卐 and turned 45°.
just realised i have a soft spot for this one. Like the lines and the symmetry.
華
huá
女
the traditional form. I can’t draw it here, but it is a female body (the first 2 strokes) sitting with 2 hands crossed and on her knees.
Elegant, feminine.
I like characters that make me chuckle when the meanings cleverly associate with the picture.
One top one is 姦 (jian1), which is three women (nv3: 女) and is most associated with the word for adultery (tong1jian1: 通姦).
…
盲 (mang2), “dead” (wang2: 亡) “eyes” (mu4: 目), so “blind.”
I also like inversions, like 甲 and 由.
I’d really love to know what the “atomics” of the Chinese orthography are, but I suppose that everyone who dabbles in CJK decomposition would.
I also have characters that I hate, particularly ones where one has to be careful about how quickly one writes them: 午/牛, 王/壬, etc.
It’s not my favorite but I always liked the story my very first (terrible) Chinese teacher told me about “美”
She said, “The top part is goat and the bottom part is big. Because in ancient China … if you had a goat and it was big … then that was beautiful”
Yeah, class was fun. She was serious, by the way - not just giving me a mnemonic device.
But my favorite characters are all in the names of my family members: 大熊, 昭瑞, 旭源, and 恆晴.
Favorite Character
2nd Favorite Character
[quote=“dahsiung”]It’s not my favorite but I always liked the story my very first (terrible) Chinese teacher told me about “美”
She said, “The top part is goat and the bottom part is big. Because in ancient China … if you had a goat and it was big … then that was beautiful”
Yeah, class was fun. She was serious, by the way - not just giving me a mnemonic device.[/quote]
Those really are the parts of the zi. Whether that has anything to do with the etymology of the word might well, of course, be a different story.
But it’s not like the like the goat = beautiful trope is alien to Western culture.
Song of Solomon 4:1
[quote]How beautiful you are, my darling!
Oh, how beautiful!
Your eyes behind your veil are doves.
Your hair is like a flock of goats
descending from Mount Gilead.[/quote]
[Insert Kiwi jokes, Gene Wilder clips, etc.]
剢
The right part is knife.
What do you think this character means?
Those ancient people, they weren’t messing around…
Maybe this?