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On August 11, 2001, the Beijing Evening News reported that a proposal titled "Suggestions on Establishing a Chinese Character Museum in the National Olympic Park" had been submitted to the office of Beijing Mayor Liu Qi. The proposal was drafted by an unknown individual named Tang Han. Why did Tang Han think of building a Chinese Character Museum? Tang Han explained, "The civilization of the Chinese nation over thousands of years is condensed in the Chinese language and characters. Chinese characters, with their unique form, record and pass down Chinese culture. Each Chinese character is almost a depiction of a real object, a microcosm of life. At the same time, Chinese characters are also a code for the collective consciousness of the nation. The Chinese Character Museum will be a grand classroom for spreading and teaching Chinese characters."
Tang Han has been contemplating the idea of building a Chinese Character Museum for over two years. He told reporters, "The Chinese Character Museum has two very important functions: first, to allow foreign friends to understand Chinese characters and their culture, facilitating cultural exchange between the East and the West. Second, Chinese characters are the backbone of the Chinese nation and the strongest cohesive force of the nation. Currently, Chinese characters have two systems: traditional and simplified. The Chinese Character Museum will serve as a bridge for the great cause of unifying the motherland. One of the themes of the 2008 Olympics is 'Humanistic Olympics.' If a Chinese Character Museum can be built in the Olympic Park, it will take advantage of this opportunity to promote Chinese character culture worldwide." Of course, it is still uncertain whether this proposal will be adopted. However, as an ordinary citizen, Tang Han's suggestion reflects people's attention and enthusiasm for the 2008 Beijing Olympics.
Who is Tang Han? Why did he propose building a Chinese Character Museum? This story is a long one.
Many explanations of the original meanings of Chinese characters are incorrect. Chinese people use Chinese characters every day, but do you know how these characters came to be? You might have heard the ancient legend of Cang Jie creating characters, but Cang Jie is just a mythical figure. In fact, the earliest Chinese characters we can see today are oracle bone inscriptions. The main symbols of oracle bone inscriptions number about 300, and Chinese characters are formed by combining these symbols. Currently, people can recognize about 1,500 oracle bone characters. Later, characters cast or engraved on bronze objects, known as bronze inscriptions, emerged, with over 2,000 characters. By the time of the Qin Dynasty's small seal script, there were about 8,000 characters. Thus, oracle bone inscriptions are an important key to understanding the origins of ancient Chinese characters. However, since oracle bone inscriptions were only unearthed and discovered in modern times, for a long period, people primarily relied on ancient texts like Xu Shen's "Shuowen Jiezi" from the Eastern Han Dynasty to explore the origins and meanings of Chinese characters. The study and interpretation of ancient Chinese characters is called exegesis. Just hearing this term, one might find it dry and obscure. Indeed, to understand the origin of a Chinese character, such as the character for "wind," and why the ancients wrote it that way, scholars of exegesis often spend a lifetime of effort, and still might not be able to provide a clear explanation.
From ancient times to the present, there have been many renowned scholars of philology. Some Chinese characters, after generations of research by philologists, have almost become established truths. However, in the early 21st century, a self-proclaimed non-expert in Chinese characters, a "small figure," used his own theories of Chinese character research to overturn many explanations of Chinese characters since "Shuowen Jiezi." He even boldly disagreed with the views of Guo Moruo, a master of oracle bone and bronze inscription research. This "small figure" is Tang Han. Tang Han candidly told reporters, "Many explanations of Chinese characters in modern Chinese are incorrect, including those in university and school textbooks. This is because many philologists do not understand the origins of characters. They don't even know how these characters were created." This is truly a shocking statement.
Tang Han, now 50 years old, was once a reporter for the Xi'an Evening News. Later, he edited magazines, engaged in business, and worked as a book publisher. It was only last year that he began serious research on the origins of ancient Chinese characters.At that time, he wanted to adapt the "Rapid Chinese Character Recognition" by Teacher Bai Shuangfa from Shanxi Normal University into a richly illustrated book for adults. However, he discovered that homophonous characters in daily life could not be explained by the same characters. Consequently, he delved into ancient texts, and the more he researched, the more he found that many original explanations of Chinese characters were incorrect. He began to study oracle bone script and bronze inscriptions, and once he got into it, he couldn't get out. That year, he put aside all his work and devoted himself entirely to studying the ancient methods of character creation and the sources of ancient Chinese characters in life. Finally, he proposed his bold thesis: previous explanations of Chinese characters were the stereotypical thinking of the scholar-official class, detached from the essence of life. Chinese characters originate from the daily lives of ordinary people and are not as mysterious as the philologists claimed. Thus, Tang Han unraveled the knot that people had considered Chinese characters difficult to learn, remember, and understand for thousands of years.
Tang Han majored in Chinese in university and later studied philosophy, giving him a solid foundation in classical Chinese, which laid the groundwork for his research on the origins of ancient Chinese characters. He believed that understanding the source of ancient Chinese characters was mainly a matter of thinking methods, and that traditional thinking methods hindered the development of philology. For example, the traditional view holds that Chinese characters are symbols for recording language. This method comes from the study of phonetic writing and is Stalin's viewpoint. In fact, this view is incorrect for Chinese characters. Theoretically, pictographic characters are the externalization of human brain thinking; they are related to language but are not symbols for recording language, because pronunciation varies greatly across different regions of China, yet the characters are universally understandable. People communicate using Chinese characters. He believed that many philologists had conceptual problems when studying Chinese characters: first, they did not know how Chinese characters were created; second, they did not know when Chinese characters were created, insisting on finding symbols from ancient artifacts and considering symbols as the origin of Chinese characters. Many books on philology have been verifying these symbols, which is actually a big mistake because characters themselves did not originate from symbols.
Boldly saying no to Xu Shen and Guo Moruo
Xu Shen's "Shuowen Jiezi" and Guo Moruo's research on oracle bone script are considered authoritative in the study of ancient Chinese characters today. However, Tang Han believes some of their views are incorrect. Xu Shen had never seen oracle bone script, and when Guo Moruo studied it, not many turtle shells and bones had been unearthed. This inevitably limited the scope of their research, and most importantly, they were influenced by traditional scholar-official views, preconceived, and overlooked folklore. They rarely went directly to the folk to seek the origins of Chinese characters. For example, the character "吉" (ji), Xu Shen explained as: from earth and mouth, ji, meaning good, is an ideogram. In fact, the original meaning of "吉" in oracle bone script is the male genitalia. Another example is the character "休" (xiu), which in oracle bone script depicts a tree with a person standing next to it. According to Xu Shen's explanation, it means a person resting by a tree. Actually, its original meaning is that ancient people stood like wood, meaning to stop. One is the original meaning, the other is the extended meaning, and Xu Shen confused them. The character "為" (wei), in oracle bone script, depicts an elephant with a hand next to it. Xu Shen's explanation is: a person leading an elephant to labor. In fact, its graphic original meaning is that the elephant's trunk is as flexible as a human hand.
Tang Han divides ancient Chinese characters into eight major categories for research: animals, plants, heaven and earth, human body, sexes, war, livelihood, and culture. He told reporters that many graphics on oracle bones reflect ancient folk art and also reflect the ancient concept of the unity of heaven and man, that is, reverence for nature. The reason for creating characters was to communicate with heaven and gods, actually the interaction between heaven and man. Then, the results of this communication were revealed to everyone, which is the direct reason for the creation of characters. It was not for writing commands, official documents, letters, nor for recording inner feelings and events. This is the same as the ancient Egyptian hieroglyphs, which were revelations in temples and tombs. Oracle bone script is divination texts carved on bones.To transform concepts into a shared experience, one must seek the most vivid images from daily life to carve into characters. For example, the character for "wind" (風) represents a natural phenomenon. How was it depicted? In oracle bone script, it was illustrated by drawing a buttock and adding a dot, as ancient people believed wind to be a flow of air. The character for "use" (用) was created by adding a stick to the buttock, while the character for "pass through" (通) was formed by adding a triangle to the buttock and extending it downward, symbolizing passage. This is essentially how ancient Chinese characters came into being.
Why did traditional philology encounter conceptual issues? Tang Han believes the primary reason is that scholars forgot a crucial fact: characters were not created by the elite but by ordinary people. In ancient times, common folk, much like today, were concerned with daily life. Due to the constraints of their living conditions, they placed great importance on sexuality and reproduction. Many ancient Chinese characters were thus created with sexual connotations. Perhaps earlier philologists noticed this but, influenced by Confucian moral standards, were ashamed to discuss sexuality, deeming it vulgar, and thus deliberately avoided or obscured it. In reality, many characters we use today originally reflected sexual culture in oracle bone script. Examples include characters like 今 (now), 私 (private), 公 (public), 高 (high), 京 (capital), 不 (not), 在 (exist), 才 (talent), 予 (give), and 幻 (illusion). Of course, the original meanings of some characters have been lost over time due to societal progress. For instance, the original meaning of 也 (also) was the female genitalia, as was 不 (not). The character 念 (to think) originally depicted a man imagining ejaculation, 予 (to give) symbolized the act of intercourse, and 幻 (illusion) represented imagined sexual intercourse.
Tang Han's most proud achievement is deciphering the original meanings of the numbers one to ten and the twelve Earthly Branches (地支). For a long time, many scholars believed that the numbers one to ten originated from symbols, derived from ancient knot-tying and carving practices. Tang Han argues that this misunderstands the origin of characters. In reality, they were direct depictions of hand gestures. The twelve Earthly Branches, on the other hand, originated from ancient umbilical cord culture, representing the process from a child's birth to their celebratory full moon. This perspective overturns all previous interpretations of the twelve Earthly Branches. For example, Tang Han believes that the original meaning of 寅 (the third Earthly Branch) was guiding the placenta or afterbirth out, whereas Guo Moruo interpreted it as holding a bow and arrow (resembling an arrow on a bow).
Can traditional Chinese character research theories be overturned?
Tang Han firmly believes that Chinese characters originated from the folk and are a direct reflection of folk culture. Unlike most experts who study characters, he does not rely solely on ancient texts. Instead, he delves into the countryside, examines physical objects, converses with elders, and sometimes even experiences things firsthand. For instance, in his study of oracle bone script, he visited the Yinxu ruins in Anyang six times. To verify the meanings of the twelve Earthly Branches, he interviewed dozens of obstetricians to understand the process of childbirth. He also confirmed that characters like 索 (rope), 率 (rate), 玄 (mysterious), and 胤 (descendant) originally had connections to reproduction.
Tang Han can be described as a character enthusiast. At times, he would travel hundreds of miles to uncover the origin of a single character. For example, why does the character 闖 (to rush) consist of 門 (door) with 馬 (horse) inside, rather than another animal? In Henan, he met an elderly farmer who explained that horses leap out of stables, while cattle and sheep lower their heads. This revelation clarified the character's formation. Why does the character 笨 (stupid) have a bamboo radical? To understand this, he traveled to southern China to interview local elders. Because he did not confine his research to the study but instead focused on the folk perspective, he uncovered the original meanings of many characters. For example, the oracle bone character 庶 (common) depicted a stone with fire below. Upon investigating in Anyang, he discovered that the area produced coal, and the original meaning of 庶 referred to ancient coal. The character 樂 (music), which Xu Shen believed represented the sound produced by plucking strings on wood, was reinterpreted by Tang Han as the natural sound of burning pine and cypress trees. Similarly, the ancient character 藥 (medicine), which Xu Shen thought was a phonetic component, was reexamined by Tang Han.The ancient Chinese character for "medicine" (藥) includes pine and cypress trees. Why were these two trees used? Tang Han, after consulting the "Compendium of Materia Medica," discovered that pine and cypress themselves are medicinal materials. To verify this, he personally chewed on pine and cypress branches.
Tang Han told reporters: "Chinese characters evolved from pictographic writing, and their creation and development history spans only about 200 years, from the beginning to the end of the Shang Dynasty. It is not as some scholars claim, that they originated 5,000 years ago, and their belief that symbols carved on pottery shards are also incorrect. Previous scholars studied Chinese characters with linear and planar thinking, but in reality, from the perspective of social development history, the evolution of Chinese characters stems from structural studies and is three-dimensional thinking. In terms of methodology, previous philologists are outdated." Tang Han has compiled his research on Chinese characters into a book, a 500,000-word monograph titled "The Code of Chinese Characters," which is expected to cause a stir in the field of Chinese character research. As an unknown figure in this profound study of Chinese characters, it remains to be seen whether his bold academic views will be recognized by experts and scholars. Regardless, his courage to use his own views to challenge authority is astonishing. Qiao Xiaoguang, director of the Folk Art Teaching and Research Office at the Central Academy of Fine Arts, said: "What is important about Tang Han's research on Chinese characters is not that he proved a few characters, but that he provided us with a way of thinking. He broke the traditional literati's mode of thinking and gave us a river, no matter where the riverbed lies." Perhaps "this river" will bring a shockwave to traditional Chinese character research.
Selected by: Wu Qimin Source: Beijing Evening News
Source: http:/ / news. eastday. com/ epub……class014800009/ hwz460164. htm
Minor Scholar Challenges Esteemed Expert: Issues in Ancient Chinese Character Research
Tang Han has been contemplating the idea of building a Chinese Character Museum for over two years. He told reporters, "The Chinese Character Museum has two very important functions: first, to allow foreign friends to understand Chinese characters and their culture, facilitating cultural exchange between the East and the West. Second, Chinese characters are the backbone of the Chinese nation and the strongest cohesive force of the nation. Currently, Chinese characters have two systems: traditional and simplified. The Chinese Character Museum will serve as a bridge for the great cause of unifying the motherland. One of the themes of the 2008 Olympics is 'Humanistic Olympics.' If a Chinese Character Museum can be built in the Olympic Park, it will take advantage of this opportunity to promote Chinese character culture worldwide." Of course, it is still uncertain whether this proposal will be adopted. However, as an ordinary citizen, Tang Han's suggestion reflects people's attention and enthusiasm for the 2008 Beijing Olympics.
Who is Tang Han? Why did he propose building a Chinese Character Museum? This story is a long one.
Many explanations of the original meanings of Chinese characters are incorrect. Chinese people use Chinese characters every day, but do you know how these characters came to be? You might have heard the ancient legend of Cang Jie creating characters, but Cang Jie is just a mythical figure. In fact, the earliest Chinese characters we can see today are oracle bone inscriptions. The main symbols of oracle bone inscriptions number about 300, and Chinese characters are formed by combining these symbols. Currently, people can recognize about 1,500 oracle bone characters. Later, characters cast or engraved on bronze objects, known as bronze inscriptions, emerged, with over 2,000 characters. By the time of the Qin Dynasty's small seal script, there were about 8,000 characters. Thus, oracle bone inscriptions are an important key to understanding the origins of ancient Chinese characters. However, since oracle bone inscriptions were only unearthed and discovered in modern times, for a long period, people primarily relied on ancient texts like Xu Shen's "Shuowen Jiezi" from the Eastern Han Dynasty to explore the origins and meanings of Chinese characters. The study and interpretation of ancient Chinese characters is called exegesis. Just hearing this term, one might find it dry and obscure. Indeed, to understand the origin of a Chinese character, such as the character for "wind," and why the ancients wrote it that way, scholars of exegesis often spend a lifetime of effort, and still might not be able to provide a clear explanation.
From ancient times to the present, there have been many renowned scholars of philology. Some Chinese characters, after generations of research by philologists, have almost become established truths. However, in the early 21st century, a self-proclaimed non-expert in Chinese characters, a "small figure," used his own theories of Chinese character research to overturn many explanations of Chinese characters since "Shuowen Jiezi." He even boldly disagreed with the views of Guo Moruo, a master of oracle bone and bronze inscription research. This "small figure" is Tang Han. Tang Han candidly told reporters, "Many explanations of Chinese characters in modern Chinese are incorrect, including those in university and school textbooks. This is because many philologists do not understand the origins of characters. They don't even know how these characters were created." This is truly a shocking statement.
Tang Han, now 50 years old, was once a reporter for the Xi'an Evening News. Later, he edited magazines, engaged in business, and worked as a book publisher. It was only last year that he began serious research on the origins of ancient Chinese characters.At that time, he wanted to adapt the "Rapid Chinese Character Recognition" by Teacher Bai Shuangfa from Shanxi Normal University into a richly illustrated book for adults. However, he discovered that homophonous characters in daily life could not be explained by the same characters. Consequently, he delved into ancient texts, and the more he researched, the more he found that many original explanations of Chinese characters were incorrect. He began to study oracle bone script and bronze inscriptions, and once he got into it, he couldn't get out. That year, he put aside all his work and devoted himself entirely to studying the ancient methods of character creation and the sources of ancient Chinese characters in life. Finally, he proposed his bold thesis: previous explanations of Chinese characters were the stereotypical thinking of the scholar-official class, detached from the essence of life. Chinese characters originate from the daily lives of ordinary people and are not as mysterious as the philologists claimed. Thus, Tang Han unraveled the knot that people had considered Chinese characters difficult to learn, remember, and understand for thousands of years.
Tang Han majored in Chinese in university and later studied philosophy, giving him a solid foundation in classical Chinese, which laid the groundwork for his research on the origins of ancient Chinese characters. He believed that understanding the source of ancient Chinese characters was mainly a matter of thinking methods, and that traditional thinking methods hindered the development of philology. For example, the traditional view holds that Chinese characters are symbols for recording language. This method comes from the study of phonetic writing and is Stalin's viewpoint. In fact, this view is incorrect for Chinese characters. Theoretically, pictographic characters are the externalization of human brain thinking; they are related to language but are not symbols for recording language, because pronunciation varies greatly across different regions of China, yet the characters are universally understandable. People communicate using Chinese characters. He believed that many philologists had conceptual problems when studying Chinese characters: first, they did not know how Chinese characters were created; second, they did not know when Chinese characters were created, insisting on finding symbols from ancient artifacts and considering symbols as the origin of Chinese characters. Many books on philology have been verifying these symbols, which is actually a big mistake because characters themselves did not originate from symbols.
Boldly saying no to Xu Shen and Guo Moruo
Xu Shen's "Shuowen Jiezi" and Guo Moruo's research on oracle bone script are considered authoritative in the study of ancient Chinese characters today. However, Tang Han believes some of their views are incorrect. Xu Shen had never seen oracle bone script, and when Guo Moruo studied it, not many turtle shells and bones had been unearthed. This inevitably limited the scope of their research, and most importantly, they were influenced by traditional scholar-official views, preconceived, and overlooked folklore. They rarely went directly to the folk to seek the origins of Chinese characters. For example, the character "吉" (ji), Xu Shen explained as: from earth and mouth, ji, meaning good, is an ideogram. In fact, the original meaning of "吉" in oracle bone script is the male genitalia. Another example is the character "休" (xiu), which in oracle bone script depicts a tree with a person standing next to it. According to Xu Shen's explanation, it means a person resting by a tree. Actually, its original meaning is that ancient people stood like wood, meaning to stop. One is the original meaning, the other is the extended meaning, and Xu Shen confused them. The character "為" (wei), in oracle bone script, depicts an elephant with a hand next to it. Xu Shen's explanation is: a person leading an elephant to labor. In fact, its graphic original meaning is that the elephant's trunk is as flexible as a human hand.
Tang Han divides ancient Chinese characters into eight major categories for research: animals, plants, heaven and earth, human body, sexes, war, livelihood, and culture. He told reporters that many graphics on oracle bones reflect ancient folk art and also reflect the ancient concept of the unity of heaven and man, that is, reverence for nature. The reason for creating characters was to communicate with heaven and gods, actually the interaction between heaven and man. Then, the results of this communication were revealed to everyone, which is the direct reason for the creation of characters. It was not for writing commands, official documents, letters, nor for recording inner feelings and events. This is the same as the ancient Egyptian hieroglyphs, which were revelations in temples and tombs. Oracle bone script is divination texts carved on bones.To transform concepts into a shared experience, one must seek the most vivid images from daily life to carve into characters. For example, the character for "wind" (風) represents a natural phenomenon. How was it depicted? In oracle bone script, it was illustrated by drawing a buttock and adding a dot, as ancient people believed wind to be a flow of air. The character for "use" (用) was created by adding a stick to the buttock, while the character for "pass through" (通) was formed by adding a triangle to the buttock and extending it downward, symbolizing passage. This is essentially how ancient Chinese characters came into being.
Why did traditional philology encounter conceptual issues? Tang Han believes the primary reason is that scholars forgot a crucial fact: characters were not created by the elite but by ordinary people. In ancient times, common folk, much like today, were concerned with daily life. Due to the constraints of their living conditions, they placed great importance on sexuality and reproduction. Many ancient Chinese characters were thus created with sexual connotations. Perhaps earlier philologists noticed this but, influenced by Confucian moral standards, were ashamed to discuss sexuality, deeming it vulgar, and thus deliberately avoided or obscured it. In reality, many characters we use today originally reflected sexual culture in oracle bone script. Examples include characters like 今 (now), 私 (private), 公 (public), 高 (high), 京 (capital), 不 (not), 在 (exist), 才 (talent), 予 (give), and 幻 (illusion). Of course, the original meanings of some characters have been lost over time due to societal progress. For instance, the original meaning of 也 (also) was the female genitalia, as was 不 (not). The character 念 (to think) originally depicted a man imagining ejaculation, 予 (to give) symbolized the act of intercourse, and 幻 (illusion) represented imagined sexual intercourse.
Tang Han's most proud achievement is deciphering the original meanings of the numbers one to ten and the twelve Earthly Branches (地支). For a long time, many scholars believed that the numbers one to ten originated from symbols, derived from ancient knot-tying and carving practices. Tang Han argues that this misunderstands the origin of characters. In reality, they were direct depictions of hand gestures. The twelve Earthly Branches, on the other hand, originated from ancient umbilical cord culture, representing the process from a child's birth to their celebratory full moon. This perspective overturns all previous interpretations of the twelve Earthly Branches. For example, Tang Han believes that the original meaning of 寅 (the third Earthly Branch) was guiding the placenta or afterbirth out, whereas Guo Moruo interpreted it as holding a bow and arrow (resembling an arrow on a bow).
Can traditional Chinese character research theories be overturned?
Tang Han firmly believes that Chinese characters originated from the folk and are a direct reflection of folk culture. Unlike most experts who study characters, he does not rely solely on ancient texts. Instead, he delves into the countryside, examines physical objects, converses with elders, and sometimes even experiences things firsthand. For instance, in his study of oracle bone script, he visited the Yinxu ruins in Anyang six times. To verify the meanings of the twelve Earthly Branches, he interviewed dozens of obstetricians to understand the process of childbirth. He also confirmed that characters like 索 (rope), 率 (rate), 玄 (mysterious), and 胤 (descendant) originally had connections to reproduction.
Tang Han can be described as a character enthusiast. At times, he would travel hundreds of miles to uncover the origin of a single character. For example, why does the character 闖 (to rush) consist of 門 (door) with 馬 (horse) inside, rather than another animal? In Henan, he met an elderly farmer who explained that horses leap out of stables, while cattle and sheep lower their heads. This revelation clarified the character's formation. Why does the character 笨 (stupid) have a bamboo radical? To understand this, he traveled to southern China to interview local elders. Because he did not confine his research to the study but instead focused on the folk perspective, he uncovered the original meanings of many characters. For example, the oracle bone character 庶 (common) depicted a stone with fire below. Upon investigating in Anyang, he discovered that the area produced coal, and the original meaning of 庶 referred to ancient coal. The character 樂 (music), which Xu Shen believed represented the sound produced by plucking strings on wood, was reinterpreted by Tang Han as the natural sound of burning pine and cypress trees. Similarly, the ancient character 藥 (medicine), which Xu Shen thought was a phonetic component, was reexamined by Tang Han.The ancient Chinese character for "medicine" (藥) includes pine and cypress trees. Why were these two trees used? Tang Han, after consulting the "Compendium of Materia Medica," discovered that pine and cypress themselves are medicinal materials. To verify this, he personally chewed on pine and cypress branches.
Tang Han told reporters: "Chinese characters evolved from pictographic writing, and their creation and development history spans only about 200 years, from the beginning to the end of the Shang Dynasty. It is not as some scholars claim, that they originated 5,000 years ago, and their belief that symbols carved on pottery shards are also incorrect. Previous scholars studied Chinese characters with linear and planar thinking, but in reality, from the perspective of social development history, the evolution of Chinese characters stems from structural studies and is three-dimensional thinking. In terms of methodology, previous philologists are outdated." Tang Han has compiled his research on Chinese characters into a book, a 500,000-word monograph titled "The Code of Chinese Characters," which is expected to cause a stir in the field of Chinese character research. As an unknown figure in this profound study of Chinese characters, it remains to be seen whether his bold academic views will be recognized by experts and scholars. Regardless, his courage to use his own views to challenge authority is astonishing. Qiao Xiaoguang, director of the Folk Art Teaching and Research Office at the Central Academy of Fine Arts, said: "What is important about Tang Han's research on Chinese characters is not that he proved a few characters, but that he provided us with a way of thinking. He broke the traditional literati's mode of thinking and gave us a river, no matter where the riverbed lies." Perhaps "this river" will bring a shockwave to traditional Chinese character research.
Selected by: Wu Qimin Source: Beijing Evening News
Source: http:/ / news. eastday. com/ epub……class014800009/ hwz460164. htm