It's all about the five cities and places which Uncle Hanzi and Adam have been to. Let's see which Chinese characters Adam has learned through the whole journey, and who are the Chinese people Uncle Hanzi has met. As Uncle Hanzi has said, he's always been looking forward to opening his eyes for new things.…

In this episode, Uncle Hanzi and Adam share the sports they each love. Guess how Uncle Hanzi became a gymnast? But Uncle Hanzi confessed that he was never a team sports person and he hasn’t watched TV for twenty years. And what was that last Chinese character for Adam to learn in this season, also an important character in Chinese culture?…

In this episode, Uncle Hanzi and Adam reveal that there is a magical line of climate difference in China, especially how cold it can get in northeast China. Also, they talk about the surprising differences in dialects and the languages of different ethnicities. But what is the “strange” and “interesting” thing frequently mentioned by Uncle Hanzi?…

In this episode, Uncle Hanzi and Adam talk about the sericulture. Also, Uncle Hanzi reveals his way of studying the evolution of Chinese characters. What are some traditional styles of clothing for the Chinese people? What do modern Chinese people wear, especially for the wedding ceremony? Follow the two travelers to find out the answers and get to…

In this episode, Uncle Hanzi and Adam had a special winter sports competition in China’s famous ice and snow tourist city Changchun. Guess who won in the end? The two also made wishes under the fireworks. Guess what are their wishes?

In the second half of this episode, Uncle Hanzi and Adam talk about the great changes that have happened in China. Why does Uncle Hanzi say “it’s like I’ve had five generations in my one lifetime”? What are the Chinese characters related to poverty and richness? Follow the two good buddies to share the philosophy about money and being a happy perso…

In the first half of this episode, Uncle Hanzi and Adam talk about their transportation experiences both in China and other countries. Uncle Hanzi shares his indelible impression on traveling to Moscow alone when he was fifty. Adam gives out an important suggestion to be an electrical car driver for the first time. Find out the interesting stories …

In this episode, Uncle Hanzi and Adam came to Daliang Mountain in southwest China’s Sichuan Province. They took a slow train and experienced many things they had never experienced before. On this special train, they saw a different China, and they also fell in love with this precious “slowness” in “fast times”.…

In this episode, Uncle Hanzi and Adam come to China’s silk capital Hangzhou. They visit an experienced maker of Qipao, or cheongsam, traditional silk factory and advanced textile laboratory to explore the magic behind Chinese clothing.

In this episode, Uncle Hanzi and Adam have a little discussion on Chinese food after their visit to the "food capital" of Chengdu. Has Adam learned to cook Sichuan cuisine? Why is the flavor of 麻 or numbness special to Uncle Hanzi? What are their favourite Chinese food? You will also find the highlight of their trip to Sichuan.…

In this episode of "My Stories of Chinese Characters", Uncle Hanzi and Adam arrive in southwest China's Chengdu, a global food capital. What do they experience? What makes Adam scream?

In this episode, Uncle Hanzi and Adam talk about the port city of Quanzhou and how they found their visit to be mind-blowing! The two travelers share their feelings of homesickness and their purposes toward life. You will also find the results of their exploration of Chinese characters related to buildings or houses.…

In this episode, Uncle Hanzi and Adam come to Quanzhou, where they visit "Quanzhou Ancient House"; experience "Dehua White Porcelain"; go to sea with fishermen; feel the Chinese people's obsession and nostalgia for "home" and "homeland".

This season, Uncle Hanzi and Adam set out to explore a real China from the perspective of Chinese characters in the daily life of the Chinese people.

The Chinese language is considered one of the most difficult languages, attracting millions of new learners every year. Uncle Hanzi will speak with foreign students, talk about the difficulties they face and share some tips.

Humans have always been curious about the future. The Chinese word 占卜 vividly reflects how the ancient Chinese practiced it. Uncle Hanzi will explore the origin of Chinese divination and discuss with an expert the philosophy behind it.

Do you enjoy hip-hop and its drumbeats? The drumbeat is the lifeblood of music as it controls the rhythm and expresses the emotion. Drum has always been an important instrument in China. Drums dictate the rhythm of battle and motivate soldiers. Uncle Hanzi will play drums and explore its charm.

Different people prefer different things. The choice of food comes from the climate and environment and reflects lifestyles and traditions. Uncle Hanzi will share his experience of food in China and Chinese food culture.

Happy Chinese New Year and best wishes for the Year of the Ox! Chinese people celebrate the Spring Festival, the most important festival in China, through various means. They often worship their ancestors, decorate their house and cook a big dinner for the New Year's Eve. This year, Uncle Hanzi will celebrate it with Aunt Wu and her family, sending…

As we all know, the concept of marriage in China is quite different from that in the West. For Chinese people, marriage is an important event and people need to do a lot of preparation. In this episode, Uncle Hanzi will tell you something about the pictograph of "marriage" and discuss the unique concepts and culture of marriage in China.…

"A small room with walls and windows, always runs in the middle of the road, with pedestrians walking on both sides." Guess what it is? It's a car. Chinese characters are considered to be pictograms, but why can't we find any wheels on the character for car?

Many people wonder why there's no "circle" in Chinese characters. In fact, it did exist in ancient Chinese characters, just disappeared over time. Uncle Hanzi will unveil the mystery of the disappearance of the circle.

Do you know how many Chinese characters you need to know to live in China? 2,000? 3,000? Or 5,000? Unfortunately, we can't give you an exact figure. It all depends on scenarios.

You may wonder why one American is called “Uncle Hanzi”? Why is he so interested in Chinese characters? Did he settle in China and have a Chinese wife? All these questions will be answered in this episode.

What is the hardest thing about learning Chinese and how can one conquer the challenges? How many Chinese characters do you need to know to get by in China? Why are all the characters drawn the way they are and what are the meanings behind all of them?......Subscribe to "My Stories of Chinese Characters" as Uncle Hanzi (Chinese characters) shares t…

He was nicknamed "the steel mill" for his capacity to just keep going on and on. He was Mao's lieutenant who was purged twice and rose three times, the final time to the very top. He enabled China's economic miracle to happen after 1978 by allowing capitalism to reemerge in the world's biggest Communist country. "It doesn't matter if a cat is white…

He may still be the most famous non-western film star in the world. Yet he made only a handful of films in the early 1970s, none of which are artistic masterpieces. It wasn't his acting that made Bruce Lee the first Chinese to conquer global popular culture. Instead, his balletic, choreographed mastery of kung fu provided a new image of the Chinese…

In the early 1920s, he was just a library assistant at Peking University. Yet by the end of his life, he would rule a fifth of all humanity, turn China into a major power, and destroy the lives of millions in a Cultural Revolution. Mao Zedong was the person, above all others, who made modern China. Yet what shaped him? The romantic novels he read i…

They came out of the countryside and helped to build China's industrial revolution. In the late 19th century, textile factories started to appear in the Yangtze delta, and working in them, teenage girls and young women. It was a hard life with the ever-present prospect of lung disease or industrial injuries as they wove cotton and silk. Yet there w…

She rose to power behind the scenes in China's late 19th century imperial court, and became one of the most powerful women ever to exercise authority in the empire. Cixi was a dowager empress, and her influence shaped China through the tragedies of the late 19th century. She prevented her own nephew from launching reforms to modernise China, and en…

This was the duel that shaped China. Hong Xiuquan was a poor boy who went into a trance and became convinced he was Jesus's younger brother, with a mission to conquer China. Zeng Guofan was a loyal Confucian bureaucrat who rose up the imperial hierarchy. In the mid-19th century, Hong's visions led him to launch a war under the name "Taiping" - heav…

He is condemned as China's worst traitor. What made him do it? In 1938, as China was plunged into war, Wang Jingwei defected to the enemy, Japan. Yet in his early life, he had been one of the great figures of the Chinese revolution, second only to the legendary Sun Yat-sen. Wang's story is one of hope for a different Asia, liberated from imperialis…

To create one character who says something profound about the society you live in might be a stroke of luck. To create three suggests you really do have your hand on the nation's pulse. That creator was Lu Xun, widely regarded as modern China's greatest writer. His pithy, astringent short stories showcased figures who held a merciless mirror to Chi…

He was a servant of the Chinese empire, respected in Beijing and London alike. Yet he was no son of Shanghai, but of Ulster. Robert Hart grew up in Portadown, but his real life started when he shipped out to China. He rose to the top of the Maritime Customs Service, the remarkable body that kept tax revenue flowing into China. Hart was one of the p…

China rarely had an image as a great maritime power. But for a brief time in the mid-15th century, that all changed under the Ming dynasty and its admiral, Zheng He. He was sent out on seven voyages to points as far apart as Southeast Asia, Ceylon, and even the coast of Africa. His fleet consisted of numerous mighty vessels, larger than anything th…

In 1988, one of the most important television programmes in history was shown. Titled River Elegy, it was watched by perhaps 100 million Chinese viewers. Despite its stirring music and dramatic imagery, it wasn't a drama, or documentary - but an argument onscreen that China had been inward-looking and backward for too long, and had to turn to the w…

Li Qingzhao, who lived (1084-1151) during the late Song dynasty, is recognised as one of China's greatest poets. She grew up within China's culture of highly regulated court bureaucracy. While her husband was a senior official, she became a brilliant and renowned poet But the Song dynasty was also a time of great political turmoil. In 1127, the dyn…

If there were a competition for most famous Chinese in history, Confucius (551-479 BCE) would surely come out on top. He was the philosopher and ethicist who has given China a significant part of its cultural DNA. Confucius lived during a period of immense political turmoil, and turned his mind to thinking about how the country could be made calmer…

He was the man with the pleasure dome, according to Coleridge, but in reality Kublai Khan didn't have so much time for pleasure. He was too busy running one of the most complex and cosmopolitan empires on earth. Kublai was ruler of the medieval Mongol empire, which became an example of how Chinese culture could be absorbed by a very different peopl…

He wasn't quite the man who invented history in China, but he certainly shaped it for thousands of years. Author of the Shi Ji (Records of the Grand Historian), Sima Qian told the history of China in the 2nd century BC in way nobody had done before; interviewing participants, influencing views on who was good and bad. History has always been politi…

In 1927, China's literary scene was struck by a sensational new character. Her name was Sophie, and she was tormented by sexual longing, unashamedly self-centred about her desires and dreams, and determined to carry out mental torture on her nice, reliable and rather dull boyfriend while lusting after a tall, handsome man she couldn't have. Sophie …

Better living through geometry. That was one of the lessons shared with the Chinese emperor by the Jesuit priest Matteo Ricci. He was part of an enterprising group of Jesuits priests who brought their faith to China, along with new ideas drawn from the scientific revolution changing early modern Europe. A collaboration rather than a conquest, Ricci…

Millions of Chinese speak the words of Kumarajiva (334-413) every day. Far fewer have any idea of who he is. He was perhaps China's most influential translator: in medieval China, he translated some of the most important Buddhist texts from Sanskrit into Chinese. Kumarajiva settled down for a life of contemplation as a Buddhist priest, but a series…

Rana Mitter argues that we can think about Chinese Nationalist leader Chiang Kai-shek and his wife Soong Meiling (Madame Chiang) as Asia's first power couple. They dominated politics in China and were two of the most prominent non-westerners on the world scene for much of the early twentieth century. Their greatest test would come in the years 1937…

Rana Mitter tells the story of Wu Zetian, the only woman ever to rule as China's emperor in her own right, in two thousand years of dynastic history. Even more remarkably,, she did it during one of the finest moments of China's cultural history - the medieval Tang dynasty. Wu Zetian grew up as a humble lady of the court, but threw off her humility …