kaomoji

Japan has its own set of emoticons. These are called kao-moji, which literally translates to "face characters." There are so many variations on these, it's overwhelming. For instance, if I want to convey concern or worry to a friend in the US, I'm limited to this: :-/ On the other hand, in Japan, I can use this: (^_^);; (that's "sweat"), or any of these, or even imply the need for a full-blown retreat. There are so many of them, webpages devoted to them are broken down into sections, with screens worth of variants. The kao-moji are less an accepted standard, and more of a form of freestyled text-art that shares more with ASCII art text files than the static happy faces of the West.