"I will always try to study and figure out things that we don't understand about the origins of Chinese characters. We understand a lot, but we don't understand everything," said Sears.

 "Chinese characters, you will never get to the bottom of them," says American Richard Sears. And he should know, having devoted almost 50 years to learning, teaching and disseminating the pictographic origins of Hanzi, the septuagenarian has earned the nickname "Hanzi Shushu," or Uncle Hanzi.

Richard Sears, 71, a physicist from the state of Tennessee, was first exposed to Chinese characters in 1972 because of a fascination with China and its culture.

Richard Sears takes notes on his research materials in Tianjin, north China, Aug. 8, 2012.(Xinhua/You Sihang)

"When I was 22, I went to Taiwan and learned to speak Chinese, but I wasn't all that diligent," Sears told Xinhua during an interview at his home in Nanjing, Jiangsu Province, east China.

By 40, he still couldn't read Chinese characters, so he started to study.

"I found that almost all Chinese had learned to read and write by absolute blind memorization and almost no one had a clue where the characters actually came from," he noted, "but I am a physicist, a scientist, so I don't like to blindly memorize stuff."

In 1994, with computers becoming more available, Sears started programming and he built a database of oracle bone inscriptions. It took him seven years just to scan the source characters from antique books.

In 2002, he launched his Hanzi etymology website. It only clocked up a few page views per day for many years, this changed in 2011, when a blogger recommended the site on Weibo, a Chinese social media platform. From a handful of views, daily traffic surged to 600,000.

Photo taken in 2002 shows Richard Sears in front of his newly-launched website. (Photo provided to Xinhua)

Over the past 29 years, his website has become a go-to resource, with information on more than 100,000 ancient Chinese character forms.

Sears believes his work is useful because it breaks down each character to reveal their logic.

"Chinese characters are part of archaeology, and so I hope that my research can be a big contribution to archaeology, "he said.

Sears was also involved in the development of a product that combines augmented reality and animation. Using Chinese Character Origin Cards, which were co-developed by Sears and a Nanjing-based company, people can bring Hanzi characters, such as "ren" (person), "niao" (bird), or "lei" (thunder), alive right in front of their eye by scanning the cards. Animations show how the character evolved from the pictographs carved on ancient oracle bones to the modern day.

Richard Sears(L) posed for picture after he was awarded for Jinling Friendship Award, a biennial award set up by the Nanjing municipal government to recognize foreign experts' contributions to local economic and social development on June 22, 2020. (Photo provided to Xinhua)

Off the back of this project, on June 22, 2020, Sears was awarded the Jinling Friendship Award, a biennial accolade issued by the Nanjing municipal government in recognition of foreign experts' contributions to local economic and social development.

Sears now lives in the ancient city of Nanjing; "Finally, after many years, I have permanent residence in China, so I plan to stay here for the rest of my life. China is my home."

"I will always try to study and figure out things that we don't understand about the origins of Chinese characters. We understand a lot, but we don't understand everything," he added.