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Tuesday, February 24, 2026

Stroke Order in Chinese Writing - How reliable is 笔顺?

https://www.youtube.com/shorts/SLuYryJQ6iw
In this video I ask an uncomfortable question. Are the rules of 笔顺 universally reliable? In this video you get the answer by examining to basic and almost identical characters: The character 力 li4, meaning power, force and 九 meaning "nine". Common and frequent they may be, but they are far from ordinary. For starters, the character 九 is listed under the radical 丿, which already makes no sense. We are baffled to discover that the strokes of both characters are written in a different order, quite the opposite of what one would expect.

Friday, February 20, 2026

The Ancient Method to Fight Fraud in China - The anti-fraud number set

https://www.youtube.com/shorts/_7h4pAr6Mak This video is about the anti-fraud numerals,a very simple and old method to find against fraud. I show how the basic numbers are written with normal characters pronounced exacty like the numerals. 1 一 → 壹 2 二 → 贰 / 貳 3 三 → 叁 / 參 4 四 → 肆 5 五 → 伍 6 六 → 陆 / 陸 7 七 → 柒 8 八 → 捌 9 九 → 玖 10 十 → 拾 100 百 → 佰 1000 千 → 仟 10000 万 → 萬 The Chinese financial numeral system (大写数字 / 大寫數字), is also called bankers’ numerals or anti-fraud numerals. The earliest systematic use of financial numerals is traditionally attributed to the reign of Wu Zetian (武则天, r. 690–705) The decisive moment of formal standardization came under the Hongwu Emperor (朱元璋, r. 1368–1398), founder of the Ming dynasty. By the 19th century, anti-fraud numerals were fully embedded in Chinese commercial law and banking practice. Financial numerals remain in: Cheques Contracts Banknotes Receipts Legal documentation even into the 21st century.

Thursday, February 19, 2026

Triplet Characters - Pattern repetition in Chinese writing 木 - 森 日 - 晶 口 - 品

The video shows how one character can be tripled and written as a new character with either a new pronuciation or a new meaning or both. Think of 一 三,木森,日晶 and so on. In the video I give my own favourite 10 triplets. It shows how important repetition is in Chinese writing and Chinese characters.
https://www.youtube.com/shorts/hjV1vqLsXdA

Wednesday, February 18, 2026

The simple character 六 has a very complex history

The video tells the story of an apparently extremely easy Chinese character. The Chinese character 六. The video describes its various meanings, pronunciations and written variants. It shows the original pictography meaning "hut". The Chinese character 六 was once used as a surname, but it modern times ot appears under a different pronunciation in the name of the city 六安市 from 安徽 province. The Chinese character 六 is written as 陆 when written as part of the anti-fraud set of numbers currently mandatory in use in banky and financial institutions.
https://www.youtube.com/shorts/weDXjdTZChI

Thursday, February 12, 2026

盲文 Chinese Braille and Chinese Characters - The Shocking Truth

盲文 Chinese Braille and Chinese Characters - The Shocking Truth
https://www.youtube.com/shorts/bWIAyVofNd4

Thursday, February 5, 2026