In this paper, we propose an orientation free method for unconstrained cursive handwritten Chinese word recognition. By a novel gravity center balancing method, the orientation of a handwritten word can be detected. Through the process of stroke extraction, stroke breaking, heuristic over-segmentation and path searching by recognition and lexicon information, the handwritten word with characters even connected or partially overlapped can be recognized. Experiments were performed on 173,660 unconstrained handwritten Chinese word samples collected by Pocket PC. The promising experimental results demonstrated our method is an orientation free and stroke-order free method for unconstrained cursive handwritten Chinese word recognition.