序言
FOREWORD
中国有一个古老的传说，一个长着四只眼，名叫仓颉的智者创造了汉字。成功之日，天上降下粟米雨，似乎是上天在向人类祝贺，鬼神在夜晚哭泣，似乎对人类掌握文字感到惊恐。这个故事显示了中国人对汉字的敬畏态度，也是联合国选择农历“谷雨”节气举办中文日活动的由来。
汉字是目前仍在使用的古老文字，已经有五千多年的历史了。伴随着代代中国人的繁衍，汉字的使用从未中断。直到今天，汉字仍在电脑、手机中被方便地使用，承载着中国文化的过去、现在和未来。
汉字是象形文字，中国古代的先民描摹大自然中的山川、草木、动物以及人的形态，创造了最早的汉字，契刻在陶器、龟甲、兽骨上。这里展示的许多古老的汉字，高度简洁明晰，任何人都能够直接辨识。
作为人类生活的记录，早期的汉字反映了先民的许多生活图景和精神生活，体现了原始的世界观，对中国文化的形成和发展产生了深远的影响。可以说，汉字是中国文化的基因。
由于汉字象形、会意的特点，从一开始，汉字的书写就具有美感。历经数千年，汉字书法成为世界文化艺术中一个独特的艺术门类。人们把善于书写汉字的人称为书法家，伟大的书法家受到人们世世代代的尊崇。儿童从小就练习书法。在中国，人们往往通过观察一个人的汉字书写来评判他的个性和文化修养。
今天，汉字不仅在中国越来越受重视，在世界上也引起了人们的广泛兴趣，作为中国文化的源头，汉字是世界了解中国文化的一把钥匙。
但是随着电脑的普及，提笔忘字甚至不再用笔写字，几乎成为每个人的常态。不仅如此，原本寓意丰富的汉字原意，大多数人已经不再了解。老浦在手机应用“得到”App上办了一个付费专栏《老浦识字》，很多用户都是和孩子一起学习。因为在掌握汉字原意的问题上，家长和孩子处在同一条起跑线。经常有小学生用户向老浦报告：这个字的知识已经分享给了爸爸、妈妈、爷爷、奶奶。
这本书收集了老浦2014年赴联合国举办《画说汉字》展览的主要作品，还收集了一些近期创作的汉字象形创意作品，目的在于用艺术的方式展现汉字甲骨文、金文原意，推广汉字文化。
真诚希望这本小册子能够帮助您打开汉字之门，了解汉字，喜爱汉字。
A Chinese legend goes that Chinese characters were invented by Cang Jie. The legend relates that on the day the characters were created, people saw crops falling like rain, as if sending a note of congratulation, whereas heard ghosts wailing, as if the ghosts are frightened by the creations. This legend mirrors the Chinese people's reverence for their language. No wonder that the United Nations close to celebrate Chinese Language Day on‘Grain Rain' day (a season division point in traditional Chinese calendar).
Chinese language can be dated back to more than 5,000 years ago. By virtue of their widespread current use in computers, cellphones, Chinese characters are among the most widely adopted writing system. It can be regarded as the epitome of the past, present and the future of the Chinese culture.
Chinese characters, represent words of language, were originally pictograms, which depicted the objects denoted. Characters derive from pictures of the objects e.g. mountains and hills, animals and plants. Chinese characters, in English, they are sometimes called Han characters, are the oldest continuously used system of writing in the world, and are carved on onto potteries, tortoise shell, and oracle bone. Ancient Chinese characters showed here are simplified and stylized to make anyone easier to understand.
Chinese characters in early stage show the picture of the spiritual world and daily life of Chinese progenitors, and reflect their world views, which heavily impact on the formation and development of Chinese culture. It can be symbolically said that Han characters are the genes of the traditional culture.
Given the hieroglyphic and ideographic semantic features of Chinese characters, the writing of the Chinese language has ever been considered as an aesthetic experience. Over the past thousands of years, Chinese calligraphy has evolved into an unique genre in the world arts and cultures. People who are specialized in written Chinese calligraphy are called skilled calligrapher. Great calligraphers would receive respects from generation to generation. Children are tend to practice calligraphy by copying works. In China, the writing of the Chinese characters can be take as the ways to understand one's self-cultivation and personality.
At present, Han characters not only have been paid much attentions than ever before, but also arouse sweeping interests from the rest of the world. It has been an important key for the world to understand Chinese culture.
However, there are cases that people usually forget how to write a character when they pick up the pen. More than that, many people do not understand the denotations of Chinese characters. Mr. Laopu starts a paid column“Laopu Shizi”on mobile application called“Iget” . Many parents and their children are the users of that application.Parents know the denotations of Han characters as little as their children. Some children write comments on the application saying that they have spread the knowledge to their families.
Mr. Laopu successfully hold an exhibition in UN on the topic of Understanding Chinese Characters via Graphs and Pictures in 2014. The book collects the major works that are showed in that exhibition, and also includes some creative pictograms by Mr. Laopu in recent. The book is for showing oracle bone scripts in artist ways, Chinese bronze inscriptions, and promoting the culture of Chinese characters.
We sincerely expect that this brochure could help you to know the Han characters first, then to understand and even love the Chinese traditional characters.
