2017年9月，"汉字叔叔"登上央视《开学第一课》，讲述他与汉字的不解之缘

　　本文作者“汉字叔叔”(Richard Sears)简介"汉字字源网"创办者;

　　用了20余年时间整理甲骨文、金文、小篆等字形并放到网上，输入汉字就可查看字形;

　　2020年6月获南京"金陵友谊奖"，同年12月获得中国绿卡。

　　The world is becoming one, and China is becoming a powerful country.

　　New Channel International Education Group Limited, is an education group dedicated to educating people in China.

　　One way is by spreading stories of China retold in English.

　　

 

　　世界正在成为一个整体，中国正在成为一个强大的国家。新航道是一家深耕国际教育领域的教育集团。其中一种方式就是“用英语讲述中国故事”。

　　I first met 胡敏Mr. Hu Min, President of New Channel which is known as 新航道 (Xīn hángdào) in Chinese on November 6, 2020.

　　He was introduced to me by 何勇 He Yong who was in charge of promoting Chinese language learning at the United Nations.

　　I had made a Chinese character etymology web site, http://hanziyuan.net and had worked on an educational product at a company called Retinar, using pattern recognition and augmented reality to recognize oracle bone characters on flash cards and explain the original meaning and evolution of 324 Chinese characters from their most ancient times up through the past 3500 years all the way to their modern simplified forms.

　　I also met李纯 Ms. Li Chun the same day.

　　

　　"汉字叔叔"与新航道签约

　　我第一次见到胡敏先生是在2020年11月6日，他是新航道国际教育集团董事长。他是由联合国赴华项目负责人何勇教授介绍给我的。我曾做过一个汉字词源网站，http://hanziyuan.net，并在一家名为Retinar的公司从事教育产品的开发，利用模式识别和增强现实技术来识别闪存卡上的甲骨文，并解释324个汉字的原始含义和演变，从最古老的时代贯穿过去的3500年再到现在的简化形式。同一天，我还见到了李纯女士。

　　You know, the world outside China really does not know very much about China and it is important to find a way to let them know more about China.

　　I must tell you about one of my personal stories.

　　Liaozhaizhiyi 聊齋誌異 (The Stories of Liaozhai) is a famous book of over 400 ghost stories.

　　Every Chinese has read it, but as far as I know, it has never been completely translated into English.

　　A few years ago I thought I might want to get a PhD in Chinese.

　　I went to a famous Chinese university and asked them, if I translate 聊齋誌異would they give me a PhD.

　　They said no! I had to write a 200-page criticism of the book. How stupid is that.

　　Who wants to read a criticism in English of one of the most famous books in the world that they can’t even read in English.

　　It is important to let the English-speaking world know about things like the stories of Liaozhai.

　　要知道中国以外的世界对中国的了解真的不多，必须找到一种方法，让他们更多地了解中国。我想告诉大家一个关于我自己的故事。《聊斋志异》是一本包含400多个奇异故事的名著。每个中国人都读过它，但据我所知，它从未被完全翻译成英文。几年前，我想获得一个中文博士学位，因此去了一所著名的中国大学并且问他们，如果我翻译《聊斋志异》他们会不会给我一个博士学位。他们说不行!我必须要写一份200页的书评。这多不合理啊。谁愿意读世界上最有名的书之一的英文评论，但他们甚至不能用英文阅读这本书呢。因此让英语世界了解像《聊斋志异》这样的事情是很重要的。

　　As for me, I have spent much of my life trying to find and transmit the true stories behind the origins of Chinese characters.

　　In my opinion, Chinese characters are one of the biggest and most important parts of Chinese culture.

　　You know, every part of every Chinese character is derived from a pictograph.

　　If you know the original pictograph of a Chinese character and the original meaning, then every Chinese character is logical and every Chinese character is related to the history of the Chinese people.

　　If you do not know the original pictographic origin and meaning, then you are simply blindly memorizing the characters with no real understanding.

　　

　　"汉字叔叔"在安徽宣城体验宣纸制造工艺

　　至于我，我一生中大部分时间都在努力寻找和传播汉字起源背后的真实故事。在我看来，汉字是中国文化中最大、最重要的部分之一。要知道，每个汉字的每一部分都是由象形文字衍生出来的。如果你知道一个汉字的原始象形文字和原始含义，那么每个汉字都是合乎逻辑的，每个汉字都与中华民族的历史有关。如果你不知道原始象形字的来源和含义，那么你只是在盲目地背诵汉字，没有真正理解。

　　For the past three years New Channel has sponsored “Stories of China Retold in English”. It is an annual story telling competition held in Beijing. Zhang Shuai and Me and my assistant Lily made it to Beijing and went to Hu Min’s house and had a good time which I will never forget.

　　在过去的三年里，新航道主办了"用英语讲中国故事 "活动，它是在北京定期举行的故事演讲比赛。 张帅和我以及我的助手李子到了北京去了胡敏家，度过了一段我永远不会忘记的美好时光。

　　Here is Hu Min presenting me with a copy of their three-volume book “Stories of China Retold in English” a collaboration of him, Paul White, William Brown and 何杰He Jie.

　　I read the stories in this set of books and found them quite interesting and recommend the book to everyone.

　　胡敏送给我一本他和Paul White、William Brown以及何杰合作的三卷本《用英语讲中国故事》。我读了这套书中的故事，发现它们相当有趣，值得向大家推荐。

　　

 

　　This is Li Chun and me.

　　这是我和李纯。

　　Li Chun likes to wear a mask all the time, but I always ask her to take it off when we take a picture.

　　Li Chun did a huge amount of research on my life and the things I have encountered in my long quest to learn Chinese and the stories of the origins of Chinese characters.

　　Li Chun has just written my autobiography, a manuscript of more than 90,000 characters. It sounds very good. I like the idea of having my autobiography published.

　　I have been a bit lax in looking over the manuscript and making any necessary changes.

　　I have spent most of my time working on my book and videos and webpage which tell the stories of the evolution of Chinese characters.

　　I hope to get back to work with Li Chun so we can publish the biography soon.

　　Li Chun probably knows more about my life than almost anyone.

　　Li Chun managed to get to Nanjing and spend a few days consulting on my biography and went to a local village 桦墅村 Huà shù cūn and have some pictures there.

　　李纯喜欢一直戴口罩，但我总是要求她在我们拍照的时候把它拿下来。李纯对我的生活和我在长期学习中文的过程中遇到的事情做了大量的研究，包括汉字起源的故事。李纯还写了我的自传，现在已经是一份超过9万字的手稿。这听起来非常好，我有让我的自传出版的打算。我对于翻看手稿以及进行必要的修改方面有些松懈，我的大部分时间都花在了我的书以及讲述汉字演变故事的视频和网页上。

　　我希望能继续与李纯合作，以便我们能尽快出版这本传记。我想李纯可能比任何人都更了解我的生活。李纯还设法到南京花了几天时间为我的传记调研，并去了当地的桦墅村拍了一些照片。

　　For the past three years, it has been extremely difficult to move around the country, because of the Covid lockdowns and testing and stuff, but New Channel has managed to pull of the story telling events anyway.

　　I did manage, despite these difficulties to get to Beijing and participate in the second annual event of “Stories of China Retold in English Competition”.

　　在过去的三年里，由于疫情等原因，在全国各地举办活动非常困难，但新航道还是成功地举办了活动。尽管有这些困难，我还是设法去了北京，并参加了第二届 "用英语讲中国故事 "的活动。

　

　　“汉字叔叔”担任“用英语讲中国故事”活动评委，深受小朋友喜爱

　　It is an important part in transmitting the stories of China to the rest of the world.

　　The Stories of China Retold in English have reached hundreds of thousands of people around the world. It was a great pleasure working with the children.

　　There is a double advantage here. The children not only get to practice their English, but they get to participate directly in telling the stories of China to people around the world.

　　

 

　　"汉字叔叔"在语合中心(左一为教育部中外语言交流合作中心主任马箭飞 )

　　这是向世界其他地区传播中国故事的一个重要部分。“用英语讲中国故事”已经影响了世界各地的数十万人。与孩子们一起工作是一件非常愉快的事情。这是一件有双重优势的事，孩子们不仅可以练习英语，而且他们可以直接参与到向世界各地的人们讲述中国故事当中。

　　I would most like to thank New Channel for their support in my research and telling of the stories of the pictographic origins of Chinese characters. With their help, I have been able to continue work on my database of the origins of 15,000 most common characters and the writing of my book, now somewhere around a thousand pages and the videos I have made over the past few years telling the stories of the pictographic origins of Chinese Characters.

　　我最想感谢的是新航道对我的研究和讲述汉字象形文字起源故事的支持。在他们的帮助下，我得以继续进行15000个最常见汉字的起源数据库的工作，继续投入到我的书的写作中，现在大约已有一千页，还有我在过去几年里制作的讲述汉字象形起源故事的视频。

　　

　　"汉字叔叔"作品获“宜居城市 美丽乡村”单元一等奖

　　I hope to spend more time this year with the people at New Channel.

　　I will be glad to see my biography published and hope it can help motivate people to learn more about Chinese, Chinese characters and China.

　　Thanks to Hu Min, Li Chun and New Channel.

　　我希望今年能有更多的时间与新航道的人共事。我很高兴即将看到我的传记出版，希望它能帮助和激励人们更多地了解汉语、汉字和中国。感谢胡敏、李纯和新航道。

　　Uncle Hanzi (Richard Sears) in Nanjing 2022.

　　汉字叔叔于2022年写于南京