Today’s Episode
Why would an American IT engineer spend decades studying Chinese characters? In this episode, we explore the story of Richard Sears, better known in China as “Uncle Hanzi”. From a heart attack that changed his life to building a free website that reveals the ancient forms of Chinese characters, his journey is both unexpected and inspiring. If you’ve ever wondered where Chinese characters come from, this episode will change the way you see them.
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In next MaoMi Chinese+ episode, we don’t just talk about “Uncle Hanzi”. We break down his real interview clips, analysing his word choices, sentence structures, and the subtle traces of foreign thinking in his Chinese. Where does he sound natural? Learn authentic, living Mandarin through a fascinating voice.
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大家好，欢迎回来 MaoMi Chinese！
今天我想跟大家介绍一个人，这个人叫“汉字叔叔”，他是一个美国人，名字叫Richard Sears，中国网友叫他汉字叔叔，因为他非常喜欢汉字，一直研究汉字。
理查德年轻的时候，学的是物理和计算机，还在美国做IT工作，可是他真正喜欢的是汉字。他22岁第一次去台湾，自己练习中文，不上课，只通过跟当地人聊天，慢慢学会了说中文。
后来他的人生有了大变化，有一次心脏病让他重新思考人生，他决定做一件别人很少做的事情，那就是把中国最早分析汉字的书《说文解字》数字化。数字化，也就是把一个东西变成电脑或者手机就可以看的东西。数字化以后，大家可以用电脑看见汉字的变化，于是他做了一个叫汉字源（Chinese Etymology）的网站。
这个网站有十几万万古代汉字和它们的历史，比如甲骨文、金文、小篆等，你只要输入一个汉字，就可以看到它从几千年前的样子慢慢变到今天的样子。很多中国网友第一次看到这些汉字的“以前样子”都觉得很新奇，还发在微博上，这样Richard的名字和他的网站突然在中国火了起来。
虽然很多人叫他网红，但他的网站一直是免费的，他自己也没有收入。有一次，因为没钱做网站，网站就要关了，很多网友给他捐钱。捐钱，也就是给他很多钱，不用他还钱。还有人叫他“汉字叔叔”，这个名字让他很开心。
后来他来到中国，住过天津、北京和很多地方。现在他的网站有超过十万个古代汉字，每个汉字背后都有故事。我们在网站上看一个汉字，就会知道这个字怎么来、怎么变、为什么这样写。
我觉得这个故事很有意思，因为他不是中国人，却花了这么多年，用电脑和网络把汉字的故事带给全世界。汉字叔叔太伟大了！
Hello everyone, welcome back to MaoMi Chinese!
Today I’d like to introduce someone to you. He’s known as “Uncle Hanzi”. He’s an American man called Richard Sears. Chinese netizens call him “Uncle Hanzi” because he absolutely loves Chinese characters and has spent many years studying them.
When Richard was young, he studied physics and computer science, and he worked in IT in the United States. But what he truly loved was Chinese characters. When he was 22, he went to Taiwan for the first time. He practised Chinese on his own. He didn’t attend classes; he simply chatted with local people and gradually learned how to speak Chinese.
Later, his life changed in a big way. After suffering a heart attack, he began to rethink his life. He decided to do something very few people had done — to digitise Shuowen Jiezi, the earliest Chinese book that systematically analyses Chinese characters. “Digitise” means turning something into a form that can be viewed on a computer or a mobile phone. Once it was digitised, people could use a computer to see how Chinese characters have changed over time. So he created a website called Hanziyuan (Chinese Etymology).
This website contains tens of thousands of ancient Chinese characters and their historical forms, such as oracle bone script, bronze inscriptions, and small seal script. You simply type in a character, and you can see how it has gradually changed from thousands of years ago to the form we use today. When many Chinese netizens first saw the “old versions” of these characters, they found them fascinating and shared them on Weibo. That’s how Richard and his website suddenly became popular in China.
Although many people call him an internet celebrity, his website has always been free, and he himself has had no income from it. At one point, because he didn’t have enough money to maintain the site, it was about to close. Many netizens donated money to him. Donating means giving him money without expecting it to be repaid. People continued to call him “Uncle Hanzi”, and that name made him very happy.
Later, he came to China and lived in Tianjin, Beijing and other places. Now his website includes more than 100,000 ancient Chinese characters, and behind each character there is a story. When we look up a character on the website, we can learn where it came from, how it changed, and why it is written the way it is.
I think this story is very moving. He isn’t Chinese, yet he has spent so many years using computers and the internet to share the story of Chinese characters with the world. Uncle Hanzi is truly remarkable.
非常有趣的一集，汉子叔叔的故事很感动。它让我把他的网站查一下。真好。我很好奇，您为什么刚才选择这个人？是不是他最近在社交媒体有很特别的事？谢谢老师。🙏
其实我很早就知道汉字叔叔了，上大学的时候我也经常用他的网站。最近看到他在中国的社交媒体 小红书 也开了一个账号，我就想介绍一下他。