Bing in Chinese / Japanese...

冰 is the Chinese character used to express “ice” or “frost.”

The main part of the character on the right holds the meaning of “water” and on the left, is a radical (the two dots) that also means water. Together, they create the character that means “ice” (solid water).

This is similar to the character for frost in Japanese. However, Japanese drop the radical from the left side.

兵 can be used to express soldiers, troops, a force, an army, weapons, arms, military, warfare, tactics, strategy, or warlike.

The final meaning depends on context. It's also part of the Chinese title for the Terracotta soldiers. In fact, this character is usually used in compound words (words of more than one character). Sometimes this single character is the title used for the pawns in a chess game (in a related issue, this is also a nickname for soldiers with the rank of Private).

See Also:  Military | Warrior

冰 is the Japanese Kanji for “ice” or “frost.”

冰 is also the way to write “ice” in old Korean Hanja.

Note: This form is not commonly used anymore in Chinese - though still understood for the most part.

FYI: There was a time when Japan did not have a written language and simply absorbed Chinese characters into their language by meaning. When this occurred around the 5th century, the character shown here was a common but alternate way to write “ice” in Chinese, so it was the one that ended up being absorbed into the Japanese language. Not long after that, a similar thing happened in Korea - although Korea has replaced virtually all of the Chinese characters they once used with the new Hangul writing system.