Can you explain the use of these type of characters: 曾厚工 ?

There are keyboard options for different languages. I am not an Asian language expert, but they look Mandarin to me. (But I could be way wrong.)

You use a special keyboard. This can be done through either hardware (you get a different physical keyboard), or software by loading a virtual keyboard on your computer. Virtual keyboards are available for Windows PCs, Macs, even iPad and iPhone.
I think that the characters that you reference are in Chinese.
Virtual keyboards, by the way, are easy to install and are free, they are usually already part of your operating system. Once installed, you can easily switch between them. I’ve got several installed on each computer.
Oh, and a lot of sites allow you to use these characters as your user ID.

It’s Chinese, I think. I strongly suspect it’s not Japanese: one of the pictograms is not in the standard list of Japanese kanji, so unless your acquaintance is into obscure literary references, it’s likely to be modern Chinese – Mandarin.

To use them on your computer, you’d need to know the reading and type it in – the transliteration is called Pinyin in this case. For Win8, you go to region and language options in control panel, select the input language you want to install, install it, then use WinKey+space to switch input methods. You then type the Pinyin in roman alphabet, and select the 漢字 (かんじ – kanji in Japanese; han tsu in Chinese) from the list of candidates.

Basically, you can’t type Chinese (and Japanese) characters on a keyboard – any keyboard – without knowing how it is pronounced.

Do all similar characters (rectangle with 4 characters inside) represent an Asian language symbol?

Google translate says it is Chinese and means “Workers had thick’ in English. Must be a literal translation.

厚工 means “thick workers” apparently and 工 is “workers.”

“Hard workers” perhaps?

Or you can just copy and paste from Google Translate.

或者你可以複製並粘貼谷歌翻譯。

Huòzhě nǐ kěyǐ fùzhì bìng zhāntiē gǔgē fānyì.

@bossob – I’m not sure what you mean. I don’t see a rectangle with four characters inside.

What operating system and internet browser are you using?

I’m using XP and Firefox. In IE, Opera, and Chrome, they show up as an empty rectangle.

Here is a screenshot that came from this thread, near the bottom.

OX and Safari. Seems to work fine.

@bossob If you’re just getting empty rectangles, you need to add the appropriate Asian fonts. Certain web pages will call for certain fonts, and if you have installed them where your browser expects to find them by default, the correct characters will be displayed. If you do not have them or have not installed them where the browser can find them, the browser will use what you have designated as the default or will display as empty rectangles. Also, the web page may contain a certain Asian fonts yet not specify a font. In that case, the browser will use the default, or may display empty rectangles.
The instructions I’m about to give you are for Windows 7 and IE 11, but XP, Firefox and Chrome will be similar. For your browser, go into Tools, then Internet Options, then General tab. There you will find two buttons, Languages and Fonts. Choose each one in turn and make your choices.
For your operating system, you need to go into Control Panel. I don’t remember how it was in XP, but look around, there should be options for adding languages to your computer. In Win 7, it’s under Clock, Language and Region. The Asian languages (and by way, this applies to Hebrew, Arabic and Russian, too) come with your OS but, to save space, are just sitting there in compressed form until you install them. Installing them expands the files and places them in their correct places. You need to do this if you’re interested in these languages.

I guess mentioning Asian language in my question was a red herring. I’m most interested in what this is: 曾. I understand that it represents a symbol or character that is not on my U.S. English keyboard or in the fonts that I have installed.

I know that if I want to present a symbol like ♥ I can look up the code in an ASCII table. Are there tables for these things 曾 ? Are they something that only computers generate? How can my computer generate one of these things ㅇ (do they have a name?) when it sees something it can’t display?

Would ♥ look like 曾 on a computer that couldn’t display a ♥?

According to my translation software, 曾 is in Chinese and, by itself, means “great-grandfather”. In context with other characters, it may mean something else. As for your other questions:

Are there tables for these things 曾 ? Yes, but they’re not ASCII. ASCII does not have enough combinations. Today Unicode is used. Unicode can even handle languages that are written from right to left, like Hebrew and Arabic.

Are they something that only computers generate? I don’t understand your question. Yes, computers can generate them, but they are legitimate language characters, so you could handwrite them, too!

How can my computer generate one of these things ㅇ (do they have a name?) when it sees something it can’t display? When it sees something it can’t display, it shows an empty rectangle.

Would ♥ look like 曾 on a computer that couldn’t display a ♥? No. If it can’t display ♥, it displays an empty rectangle.

http://www.mandarintools.com/cgi-bin/wordlook.pl?word=曾&searchtype=simp&where=whole&audio=on

Thanks, @2davidc8, ‘Unicode’ answers a lot of my questions, and gets me pointed in the right direction to learn more.

Ah! Now I understand!

The unicode is U+66fe.

Basically, XP is an old OS, and you need to have the language packs installed in order to see the unicode. Newer OSes have them installed already.

So…folks with a newer OS are seeing Asian characters where I’m seeing a rectangle, right? It’s starting to make sense now. They’re feeling the elephant’s leg, and I’m feeling the elephant’s tail.

LOL I’ve wondered for years about those rectangles, and why nobody ever comments about them. They weren’t seeing them. Duh!

Thanks, again.

I had a laptop that ran XP. I installed the language packs and could see all the characters just fine. So, you can make it work with XP. Just follow the instructions given above.