Two women sat in the front row. One, a Caucasian woman, typed notes rapidly on her iPad, occasionally raising her phone to take pictures of the projection screen. The other, a Chinese-American woman, was much quieter; without a computer, she brought only a stack of small slips of paper, writing as she listened. Before long, a small sea of paper had spread across the table.
They listened intently.
Sometimes looking up, sometimes looking down, and occasionally smiling—as if they had suddenly uncovered an ancient secret.
What they were exploring were characters from over 3500+ years ago.
Writing Chinese Characters Live
On the afternoon of March 14, 2026, inside 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," presented by Chinese character and culture researcher Lewei Shang.
Geographically, this location is not far from the tech hubs of RTP (Research Triangle Park). Every day, scientists, engineers, and entrepreneurs shuttle between nearby labs and offices.
But on this particular afternoon, the discussion wasn't about technology; it was about characters.
More accurately, it was the story of how pictures transformed into written words.
"Originally, Chinese characters were not hard to learn at all," Shang noted.
Shang pulled up a projection.
Strange symbols appeared on the screen: some looked like 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 peaks, and fish with tails and fins.
These drawings 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."
“However, Chinese made Chinese difficult”.
A ripple of laughter went through the room.
Because when many people learn Chinese, they are told only one thing:
Memorize it.
Which is the only way for thousands of years for billion people to learn Chinese.
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.
Once these foundational structures are understood, Chinese characters are no longer just rote memorization, but rather a game of logic and imagery.
"Chinese can actually be the most fascinating language in the world," he said.
How to Hold a Brush?
What began Lewei Shang's bond with pictographs?
Many don't know that Shang's journey into studying pictographs started by sheer chance in his personal life.
Many years ago, his wife was completing her medical residency in a U.S. hospital, working nearly eighty hours a week. They had two children at home, aged twelve and four, who needed care.
"She was definitely going to earn more than me in the future," he remarked, "so I went home."
This sudden abundance of 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.
Disliking rote memorization for his students, 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 a door opening.
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 eight hundred Chinese characters.
Audience Reactions
After the lecture, an American attendee named Mark described his experience:
He had originally come just to attend a standard calligraphy workshop, but unexpectedly heard the story of how writing was born—that Chinese characters were initially pictures of animals and nature before gradually evolving 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, leading them to constantly shrink and simplify the characters' forms. Those initially fluid, picture-like lines gradually became more concise, straighter strokes to allow for faster writing.
"What were originally intuitive pictures," he marveled, "later became an entire set of complex symbols requiring memorization."
Yet, 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 themselves.
Some wrote "fish," some wrote "mountain," and others wrote "elephant."
A ten-year-old Chinese-American girl, 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 shirt, she said:
"Chinese characters are so interesting, just like a storybook. I want to study them well from now on!"
Another participant was an American woman, a Ph.D. in biology. Looking at her work, she 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!
A Cross-Cultural Encounter
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 three-thousand-year-old characters 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 North Carolina, a group of
