In 1972, Richard Sears, a young American began learning Chinese because of his interest in traditional Chinese culture. Drawn to the ancient language, he went to China to study Chinese in the 1990s.

In 1994, Richard Sears decided to put the ancient Chinese characters online. In 2002, he created the Chinese Etymology (汉字字源) website which got a lot of attention in 2011.

“I got a few thousand emails, and a few million visitors and people started calling me ‘Uncle Hanzi’,” Sears said with a smile. Hanzi means Chinese characters (文字) . He has put more than 96,000 ancient Chinese characters onto the website.

Sears said when he came to China in the last century, few Chinese could speak good English. “However, you can hear English in many places in China now. Chinese language and culture were mysterious (神秘的) and not known by people in most countries then, but now, more and more people in the world are learning Chinese, even Chinese history, traditional Chinese medicine; etc.”

At present, the 70-year-old American has made his home in China. “When I die, I hope my website will live on, and I'm planning to write a book about my research. This will be my gift to China.” he said.

Tiangong, Tianwen…Do you know where the names of Chinese space programs come from?

The satellite (卫星) Wukong is named after the Chinese superhero the Monkey King. According to Journey to the West, the Monkey King has a pair of sharp eyes which can tell the difference between good and evil (恶). The Wukong satellite is just as sharp-eyed as the Monkey King to help scientists search for dark matter (暗物质) in space.

The name of the space station, Tiangong, means the “Heavenly Palace”. In Chinese myths, this is the home of Tian Di. Now the Tiangong space station is a home for Chinese astronauts in space. And China welcomes foreign astronauts to Tiangong so that they can work together.

Tianwen, China’s Mars missions (任务), gets its name from the poem Tianwen by Qu Yuan. In Tianwen, Qu Yuan had the questions about the sky, stars, nature, myths and the real world showing his hunger for truth. Perhaps the Tianwen misions will end up answering some of Qu Yuan’s questions.

If you look into more names of Chinese space programs, you will find that they all have beautiful meanings. We, the Chinese people, have a long-cherished (珍藏已久的) space dream. So the naming of Chinese space programs is taken very seriously.