I download these packages: $ doas pkg_add ubuntu-fonts uim uim-chewing uim-gtk \ uim-gtk3 zh-fonts-arphicttf zh-fonts-kc zh-libchewing \ zh-libpinyin zh-wqy-bitmapfont zh-wqy-zenhei-ttf This includes the font packs and UIM input engine for zhuyin (chewing) and pinyin. Inside ~/.profile, I put this line: export LC_CTYPE=en_US.UTF-8 You will also want to run that command in your current terminal. When you need to type Chinese in firefox, I run: $ uim-toolbar-gtk3 When I need to type Chinese in Xterm, I type: $ uim-fep To toggle between Chinese and English, type ctrl+space. For xterm, I add the following lines: XTerm*forcePackedFont: true XTerm*cjkWidth: false XTerm*mkWidth: true xterm*faceName: DejaVu Sans Mono xterm*faceSize: 25 Change xterm*faceSize: 25 to match your desired font size. Open a new xterm window to see the new settings.