What 竿 means
In Chinese, 竿 is bamboo-specific; 杆 covers shafts more broadly. A pre-Qin line in the Shijing, an early Chinese poetry collection, uses 竿 in a fishing scene. Later uses include bamboo writing slips and a word for counting bamboo poles.
What it means when someone sends it to you
2 readingsChinese word
A bamboo pole or fishing rod.
Japanese 竿 (さお) use
A clothesline, flagpole, survey rod, or instrument neck.
Don't confuse it with
1Combination ideas
3Bamboo pole.
Fishing rod.
Bamboo slips used for letters; by extension, correspondence.
Questions people ask
1Why does 竿 show as a box on some devices?
Because that device's fonts have no glyph for it. The character is still correct and still copies correctly — the box is a missing glyph, not a broken character.
How to type 竿
Windows (Word)
Alt+XType 7AFF, then Alt+X to get 竿.
Windows
Win+Rrun charmap for the full table, or use the emoji picker's Ω symbols tab (Win + .).
macOS
Control+Command+SpaceOpen the character viewer and search “cjk unified ideograph-7aff”.
Linux
Ctrl+Shift+UType 7aff, then Enter or Space.
HTML
竿CSS
\7AFFCodes and encoding1 code points
HTML decimal
竿
HTML hex
竿
CSS content
content: "\7AFF";
Each escape is closed by the next backslash; a trailing space is needed before a literal hex digit.
URL encoded
%E7%AB%BF
1
On screen
1
Code points
1
JS .length
3
UTF-8 bytes
A visible symbol can contain several code points. JS .length counts UTF-16 units; UTF-8 counts bytes.