Literary Discussions

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9qHNmnXJz7Y

The Story of Chinese Character : 耳(漢字的故事 : 耳) on the etymology/origin of various interesting Chinese Characters:

I have a Wordpress blog and a Facebook group on the beginners experience learning Chinese. This youtube series seems like a good way to spark some interest in readers; attract their attention. And I occasionally mention the virtues of http://skritter.com/ in my posts. The study of Chinese characters is for senior citizens (like me) a much better hobby than crossword puzzles to keep the memory active and also learn something new. The more we blog about skritter, yellowbridge, chinesepod and other resources to the general public the more likely it is for interest to spread. I think the average non-Chinese speaker just goes "out of focus" to anything Chinese because they simply assume that they cannot understand. I was astounded when I began to Google search and saw what a wealth of material their is on the Internet on Chinese. It is a shame that the Youtube series did not make an effort to fine a variety of tunes to make them more interesting.

I think the main point we can make in our blogs to the world is that Chinese is NOT something inscrutable and out of reach AND it has the longest continuous spoken and written history of any language in the world (Greek is number 2 so Greek is the longest in the West.) AND there is a kind of romance and mystery to the logograms which reaches back into the dawn of prehistory.