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For the past 30 years, Richard Sears, also known as "Uncle Hanzi" by the Chinese, (1)
to one thing:telling the stories behind Chinese characters.
His interest in Chinese characters goes back to 1972, when he was studying physics at university in the US. "I wanted to see the world (2)
. But then I realized only 7% of the world's people speak English as their mother language. So I decided to learn another one," this American man recalled.
By 1990, Sears spoke Chinese quite well, but he still could hardly wrote it. To Sears, Chinese characters were difficult. "I'm a physicist, so I don't like (3)
memorization. I knew that Chinese characters came from pictographs(象形文字), so I wanted to know the stories behind them."
In 2002, he set up his website and named it Chinese Etymology where visitors can check for free the (4)
of Chinese characters. For example, the Chinese character jia, which means home, has a rooftop
in the upper part and a big pig in the (5)
part. A long time ago, a building(6)
into two parts. The upper part was for people to live(7)
the other part was the place to raise animals. Such a building(8)
room foods(洪水) and wild animals. It is the earliest jia.
In September 2021, Sears set up his studio in Nanjing(9)
which focuses on making a set of videos to tell stories of Chinese culture and character origins(起源). " For young Chinese and foreign learners of Chinese characters, these videos not only are (10)
and interesting, but also show the origins of Chinese characters in a clear way, " he says.