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When you first hear the title "Uncle Hanzi" (literally translates to "Uncle Chinese Characters"), you may find it hard to believe that it was given to an American man named Richard Sears.
Sears founded the website "Chinese Etymology" in 2002, the first one in the world that had ancient Chinese characters. To sate his curiosity about traditional Chinese culture, he built a database that contained more than 96,000 ancient Chinese characters, and spent over 20 years sorting different types of inscriptions ranging from oracle and bronze to small seal and putting them on the Internet.
"I want to know the source of different characters. Each Chinese character has its own story," said Sears.
His studies of Chinese characters made him rise to fame after a micro-blogger found his website in 2011. He now teaches physics at Beijing Normal University. What satisfied him was that more students chose to study science for the sake of science rather than following their parents’ paths 10 years ago.
Want to know more? Click the video for the story of "Uncle Hanzi".
(Video source: CGTN, compiled by Han Xiaomeng)
