Stories on the History of Chinese Characters | intermediate Chinese podcast

Tea Break Chinese Episode 83: A short story about the history of Chinese characters Hello everyone, welcome back to Tea Break Chinese. You are listening to the first episode of 2024. Happy New Year. welcome back. Many people make their New Year's resolutions at the beginning of the year. Do you have any New Year's resolutions? Read a book every week, learn to cook Chinese food, and go to the gym. . … These are good plans. The most important thing is to persist and don't give up. Speaking of reading. Recently, we put a video on YouTube. In the video, I interview my friend Scott. Yes, that's the Scott I mentioned often in the show two years ago. We shared the books we enjoyed reading when we were students. Starting this year, I want to make some interviews. I believe that I can learn a lot of new things from others. In the Tea Break Chinese Podcast, I am still the host for the time being. The topic of today’s program is “A short story about the history of Chinese characters”. Of course, I will tell you a few short stories about the history of Chinese characters. Now, everywhere in the world, there are people speaking Chinese and writing Chinese characters. However, do you know the history of Chinese characters? Today, we are going back to the beginning of Chinese history, Take a look at how Chinese characters became what they are today step by step. are you ready? The first story: The myth of "Cangjie coined characters" We can imagine that the earliest people could not write. People first learn to speak. Then people started writing down what they said. Today, in some parts of the world, We can also see what people wrote in caves long ago. So, we have this question: Who was the first person to write? In different cultures, some very ancient stories answer this question. In ancient Egypt, people believed that a god named Thoth invented writing. He has the head of a bird and the body of a man. The ancient Egyptians believed that he invented writing. In ancient Greece, people believed that the god Hermes Saw birds flying around in the sky and invented the Greek alphabet. In ancient Chinese culture, the name of the person who invented writing was "Cangjie". The story of his invention of writing is also related to birds. Let’s briefly introduce it. In Chinese culture, it was Cangjie who invented writing, not a god, but a man. However, he is no ordinary person. In this ancient story, he has four eyes. What does four eyes mean? This means that he can see things that ordinary people cannot. So, what did he see? One day, Cangjie saw bird footprints on the ground. A footprint is a footprint, a mark left behind by an animal. The mark left behind. He discovered that we can know what kind of bird it is from its footprints. People do the same thing today, don't they? For example, when hunting, we look at the animal footprints on the ground; You can know what animals have been here. So Cangjie continued to think: The bird's footprints tell us what kind of bird it is. Animal footprints tell us what kind of animal it is. I can also draw on the ground. When other people see what I draw, they can know what I mean. He started drawing on the ground. We say that this is the earliest Chinese character. Today, we call this story "Cangjie's Creation of Characters". Indeed, if we look at the earliest Chinese characters, You will find that many of them are drawn by people. Perhaps Cangjie was not just the first person to write Chinese characters. He is also China's first painter and first artist. Second story: Chinese characters on the turtle shell We can imagine that Cangjie was writing on the ground at the beginning. Soon, people discovered that words written on the ground could not be retained for long. On rainy days, there are no words on the ground. People need to find somewhere else to write the Chinese characters. We need a place where we can keep it for a long time. Now, I'm going to tell you the second story. This story happened more than a hundred years ago. In 1899, China was still under the Qing Dynasty. At that time, there was a man named Wang Yirong. He works for the government in Beijing. Once, he fell ill and bought some Chinese medicine from the pharmacy. Traditional Chinese medicine is traditional Chinese medicine. People put different plants and animals together to make medicine. This is what we call Chinese medicine. Chinese people today still take traditional Chinese medicine. It's winter now. For many Chinese, now is the best time to take traditional Chinese medicine. Welcome to "Talk about Ancient Chinese Medicine and Modern Chinese Medicine". As the temperature drops in winter, people's immunity also declines. In winter, many people have problems with cold hands and feet. Today we are going to talk to you about how in winter, What kind of wisdom did the ancients have to maintain health? Let’s return to the story of Wang Yirong. The doctor gave him some Chinese medicine. These traditional Chinese medicines contain animal bones. Wang Yirong looked at the bones of these animals and found strange words on them. Of course, at that time he wasn't sure whether it was words or not. Therefore, he did not take these traditional Chinese medicines. He didn't eat the bones. He went back to the drugstore and bought all the bones in the drugstore. He and a friend looked carefully at the bones, Found that this is the oldest Chinese character in the world. Most of these Chinese characters are written on turtle shells. Turtle shells are turtle shells. We call this kind of writing "oracle bone inscriptions". "Oracle Bone Inscriptions" are Chinese characters written by the Chinese more than 3,000 years ago. Now, you may have this question: Can we understand Oracle today? Can we read oracle bones? The answer is, we can understand some. The Chinese characters in some oracle bone inscriptions are actually similar to today’s Chinese characters. For example, the word "人" in "Chinese". Another example is the numbers "one, two, three". So, we can translate some things written in Oracle. What could Chinese people write 3,000 years ago? Usually it records the life of the king. For example, the oracle bone inscriptions may say: Today, the king drank with everyone. Or: Today the king saw his army. Or: Today, everyone hopes it will rain. From today's perspective, these things are very simple and cute, But at that time, only kings could write their lives on animal bones. The third story: the invention of paper I remember when I visited the Shanghai Museum, I saw many ancient bronzes. Bronze is something made of bronze. Today, we continue to visit the "Bronze Hall" of the Shanghai Museum. Explore the cultural heritage of ancient China together. In the past, people used bronze to make many things. For example, a very large clock, or a very small eating bowl. On these bronzes, we will see many Chinese characters. We call the Chinese characters on these bronze vessels "Bronze Inscriptions". The bronze was very heavy and it was difficult for us to carry it somewhere else. So people began to write on bamboo and silk. We can imagine that the book Confucius read was made of bamboo. We can imagine that the book our friend Qin Shihuang read was made of bamboo. We can imagine that the books read by the heroes during the Three Kingdoms period were made of bamboo. The Chinese made books out of bamboo. The Chinese also make bamboo chopsticks for eating. Pandas also eat bamboo. We can see that bamboo is a very useful thing. In episode 49 of the podcast, we have introduced China’s “Four Great Inventions”. Among them, there is an invention, that is "paper". The person who invented paper was named Cai Lun. Now, let's briefly review his story. Cai Lun was born more than 2,000 years ago. When he was 9 years old, he entered the government and studied with other children. When he grew up, he worked for the government. Cai Lun studied very seriously. As we just said, people at that time wrote on bamboo or silk. Although bamboo is not as heavy as bronze, But it is still difficult for people to take many books made of bamboo to other places. Although books made of silk are very light, silk is very expensive and costs a lot of money. Cai Lun began to think: How can we invent a material that is light and cheap? He did many experiments. Finally, use "garbage" such as wood, clothes, and fishing nets Made a material that can be written on. Cai Lun happily told the emperor about his invention. The emperor saw it and was very satisfied and began to encourage people all over China to write on paper. People at that time called "Cai paper" because paper was invented by Cai Lun. Story Four: Printing With paper, almost everyone can write. People started copying books. If I read a book and like it very much, I will spend several days reading it. Copy every word in the book on my paper. Now, there are two identical books in the world. Needless to say, copying books takes a long time. Moreover, if they are not serious and careful, people will write wrong things. In the 7th century, almost 1,400 years ago, the Chinese invented "printing". This is also one of China's four great inventions. In Europe, people also invented printing, but it was much later than China. Today, we are not sure whether Europeans learned printing from the Chinese. It is very possible that Europeans invented printing themselves, just later than China. Today, we spent almost 20 minutes briefly introducing the history of Chinese characters. We learned the story of "Cangjie coined characters". We also learned how Oracle was discovered, how Cai Lun invented paper, and so on. Today, what we didn’t introduce is calligraphy. Calligraphy is the art of writing. Because I find it difficult to introduce various calligraphy styles to you in words, So I didn't talk about this topic today. I have always been very proud of the history of Chinese characters. The Chinese were among the first people in the world to start writing. The Chinese love reading and invented paper and printing. These inventions have changed the world. People today write on mobile phones and computers. The Chinese 3,000 years ago used turtle shells to write. The reasons are the same. We want to tell others how we feel. We want to share what we know and what we have done with others. Maybe Tea Break Chinese is doing the same thing. We want to introduce Chinese culture and Chinese history to everyone. On Patreon, I will make a short video, Let me continue to introduce to you the story of "Cangjie's creation of characters". Yes, this story is not over yet. After Cangjie, who had four eyes, invented Chinese characters, something else happened. I will continue to share this ancient story with you. If you are interested, you may consider becoming our member. If you just want to read the original text of this episode, You can read it for free on our website. Finally, I would like to thank the new members of Tea Break Chinese, Meiyuan classmate, prepare with me for this episode. Thank you everyone for listening and supporting. See you in the next episode.