Han characters may be taught both as components of the mother tongue as well as elements of certain foreign languages. This paper centres on understanding approaches to the teaching of writing of Han characters as an aspect of foreign language learning. The mastery of Han characters may be considered a key objective in mother-tongue as well as foreign language teaching in China, Taiwan, Hong Kong and Japan, but is only considered as foreign language teaching in Korea. However, the written forms taught in schools in the five above-mentioned locations differ markedly from one another. Japan has strict stipulations about written forms of Japanese; the governments of China, Taiwan and Hong Kong adhere to prescribed benchmarks on the written form of Han characters; while Korea only sets requirements on fonts. Although Hong Kong supposedly has a recommended benchmark, differences in written forms can be found in primary and secondary school textbooks. This leads to problems in teaching and assessment since few teachers have a comprehensive understanding on the difference in written forms of Han characters found in Hong Kong and elsewhere in South-East Asia. This paper looks at differences in the written forms of Han characters in the five regions mentioned above, and at some of the issues associated with these differences.