By Yalan
Two women sat in the front row. One, a Caucasian woman, typed notes rapidly on her iPad, occasionally raising her phone to take photos of the projection screen. The other,a Chinese-American woman, was much quieter; she had no computer, only a stack of small slips of paper, writing as she listened. Before they knew it, a small sea of paper had spread across the table.
They listened intently. Sometimes looking up, sometimes looking down, occasionally breaking into a smile, as if they had suddenly understood some ancient secret.
What they were discussing were characters from over 3,500 years ago.
On the afternoon of March 14, 2026, in a meeting room at the Durham South Regional Library in North Carolina, over forty attendees gathered for a lecture on Chinese characters. The lecture was titled “The Pictographic Origins of Chinese Characters,” and the speaker was Chinese character and culture researcher Lewei Shang.
Geographically, this location is not far from the technology hub of RTP (Research Triangle Park). Every day, scientists, engineers, and entrepreneurs shuttle between nearby labs and offices.
But on this afternoon, people were not discussing technology; they were discussing characters.
More accurately, it was the story of how pictures transformed into writing.
Shang brought up a projection.
Strange symbols appeared on the screen: some looked like a fish, some like mountains,and one like a round sun.
“These are not words,” he said. “They are actually pictures.”
Over 3500+ years ago, the Chinese recorded the world in the most direct way possible: they drew what they saw. The sun was drawn as a circle, mountains as a series of peaks, and fish with tails and fins.
These pictures were the earliest Chinese characters.
Later, people carved these characters into tortoise shells and ox bones, creating what is known today as Shell Bone Script (shell bone script). As writing methods continually evolved, the pictures were gradually simplified, the strokes became straighter, and they eventually transformed into the Chinese character system we use today.
“Therefore,” he said, “the earliest Chinese characters were actually not difficult at all.”
Someone in the room laughed.
Because when many people learn Chinese, they are told only one thing:
Memorize it.
In Shang’s view, this is exactly the misconception in modern Chinese learning.
“Chinese characters are actually like building blocks.”
Initially, there were only about four hundred pictographs. Later, people combined these characters to form new ones, then combined them into words, ultimately constructing a language system capable of expressing infinite meanings.
If one understands these foundational structures, Chinese characters are no longer about rote memorization, but rather a game of logic and imagery.
“Chinese can actually be the most fascinating language in the world,” he said.
What sparked Lewei Shang’s connection with pictographs?
Many don’t know that his journey into studying pictographic characters started as a mere coincidence in his life.
Many years ago, his wife was doing her medical residency training at a U.S. hospital, working nearly 80 hours a week. They had two children at home, one 12 and one 4, who needed care.
“She was definitely going to earn more than me in the future,” he said, “so I went home.”
This sudden abundance of free time allowed him to start writing again. He wrote about his childhood, his years as a “sent-down youth,” his college life, and his life in America.
Over a few years, he wrote two to three hundred articles, which were successively published in Chinese-language newspapers.
Later, he began teaching at a Chinese school.
He disliked rote memorization for his students, so he brought crosstalk, two-part allegorical sayings, tongue twisters, and couplets into the classroom.
One day, he came across a passage in a textbook introducing pictographs.
It was a very short text, but it acted like an open door.
He began researching Shell Bone Script and brought pictographs into his calligraphy classes. The children were quickly captivated by this method, and one student even won first prize in the North American Chinese School Calligraphy Competition consecutively.
Over more than a decade, he has analyzed the pictographic structures of over 800
Chinese characters.
After the lecture, Mark Goodwillie, Co-Chair of the Durham-Zhuzhou Sister Cities Committee, described his experience this way:
He had originally come just to attend a standard calligraphy lecture, but unexpectedly heard a story about the birth of a writing system—that Chinese characters were initially pictures of animals and nature, and only later gradually evolved into a complex writing system.
In Mark’s view, there were practical reasons behind the evolution of Chinese characters: early writing materials were extremely expensive, and people needed to record information in limited spaces, so they constantly shrank and simplified the forms. Those originally fluid, picture-like lines gradually became more concise, straighter strokes for faster writing.
“What were originally intuitive pictures,” he marveled, “later became an entire set of complex symbols requiring memorization.”
But during this lecture, he was able to see what those characters looked like in their very beginning.
Mark noted that the atmosphere of the entire lecture was relaxed and enjoyable.
Shang’s gentle explanations and sense of humor kept many in the audience fully engaged. Even the younger attendees were drawn in by this style of storytelling.
“We learned a lot,” he said.
The lecture concluded with an interactive segment.
Brushes, ink, and rice paper were laid out on the tables, allowing everyone to try writing
pictographs.
Some wrote “fish,” some wrote “mountain,” and others wrote “elephant.”
A 10-year-old Chinese-American girl named Jacqueline wrote with exceptional focus.
She filled two entire pages.
During the judging, she tied for first place and won a commemorative T-shirt.
Hugging the T-shirt, she said:
“Chinese characters are so interesting, just like a storybook. I’m going to study them hard from now on!”
Another participant was an American woman, a Ph.D. in biology. She looked at her work and said:
“Every Chinese character is like a painting.”
After the event, the staff tallied the attendance.
41 people.
They hadn’t expected so many people to be interested in Chinese characters!
This event was co-hosted by Sister Cities of Durham and the Durham County Library.
Sister Cities is an all-volunteer organization affiliated with Sister Cities International, originally proposed by U.S. President Dwight D. Eisenhower to promote cross-cultural understanding through “citizen diplomacy.”
Durham has established sister city relationships with several cities worldwide, including Zhuzhou and Kunshan in China.
In this Research Triangle area renowned for technology, a lecture on a script spanning over 3500+ years allowed many to rediscover an ancient culture.
As the lecture ended, the little girl hugged her newly won T-shirt.
Like holding onto a tiny treasure.
Over 3500+ years ago, when the Chinese drew the sun, fish, and mountains, they probably never imagined that one day, inside a library in Durham, North Carolina, a group of people of different ethnicities, skin colors, and ages—especially children—would fall in love with these ancient drawings all over again.
In this moment, Chinese characters are more than just a language.
They are more like an encounter, a mutual understanding transcending thousands of years of time and space…
Mr. Shang’s website is: https://learnchinesewithpictography.blogspot.com/