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Last August, a well-prepared exhibition titled "Chinese Scripts: From Oracle Bones to Computer Bytes" opened in Beijing-based Chinese Modern Literature Museum. This exhibition toured Egypt last October as a cultural event in celebration of the opening of China Cultural Center in Egypt. After that, it will be displayed in France, Malta and the Republic of Korea.

In recent years, some Western people have been fond of wearing T-shirts, caps and even tattoos decorated with Chinese characters. That indicates more and more people begin to show interest in Chinese writing and Chinese culture. Actually, Chinese writing is closely related to Chinese culture. Technically, two of ancient China's four great inventions ?paper making and printing, are involved with Chinese writing. Artistically, Chinese calligraphy has long been an art form enjoying popularity among educated Chinese. Therefore, it is a good way to promote Chinese culture by displaying the charm of Chinese writing. And that is the main purpose of this exhibition.

From the earliest pictographic symbols carved on turtle bones to the current simplified scripts, Chinese characters have been in existence for over 3000 years. As one of the world's oldest writings still in use, Chinese characters represent pronunciation, form and meaning all in one, demonstrating richness and profundity of Chinese culture.

This exhibition "Chinese Scripts: From Oracle Bones to Computer Bytes" intends to promote Chinese culture overseas. It consists of six parts-"Origins of Chinese Scripts", "Structures of Chinese Scripts", "Evolution of Chinese Scripts", "How to Write Chinese Scripts", "Contribution of Chinese Scripts" and "Chinese Scripts in the Computer Age". In the front of the exhibition hall are placed 12 square columns decorated with Chinese characters in paper cut which represent names of shengxiao (any of the twelve animals used to symbolize the year in which a person is born.) The exhibition includes 90 display boards, 50 items in kind, computerized flash presentation, the Chinese Cyber Library, etc. From those exhibits, visitors can have a complete understanding of how Chinese characters have developed and their compatibility with modern technologies. And all the exhibited scripts, pictures and objects are accompanied with English explanations, which help foreign visitors to appreciate and understand.

Though based on academic research results, this exhibition is designed to be presented in a simple, appealing manner, because its intended visitors are foreigners who know little about Chinese culture and language. Exhibits include many pictures and multi-media technologies are applied to vividly demonstrate the long history of Chinese scripts. Visitors can use specially designed computers to hand-input characters. They can also write Chinese characters with brush pens on their own and press seals on their artwork. All those means will help foreigners to have an easy access to Chinese characters so that they will have a general, direct knowledge about it in a very short time.

Source: The origin source from Cutural Exchange.


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