Oriental Health Aesthetics: The Time of Professor Qiu Zhenglun’s Explanation of the Book of Changes(42)

“So I believe that this concept of calligraphy and painting sharing the same origin is fundamentally about ‘that one stroke that opens up the universe’. When we cultivate this idea of ‘one stroke opening the universe’ within our minds, each dot and stroke we create truly gains a life-direction of its own.

Now, I want to explore why Chinese characters became the primordial matrix of Chinese calligraphy and painting. Let me first point out that in primitive times, across the entire world, whenever writing systems emerged, they were predominantly pictographic. But how many countries today still use pictographic scripts? Have you ever considered that? Take a guess—how many? Only China.

This leads to the question: Why has only China preserved it? All other nations now use phonetic scripts for their official writing. You might mention Japanese or Korean—but they actually borrowed components or entire characters from Chinese. For example, Japanese uses kana, which is a phonetic system. So why has China been the sole country to maintain its pictographic script?

Let me share a story about Mr. Cheng Dali. During one of his lectures, a student asked: ‘Mr. Cheng, we’re all talking about telling China’s story well and spreading Chinese culture globally, which requires foreign languages. How long do you think it takes to master English?’

Mr. Cheng Dali replied, ‘About 50 years.’

The room fell into complete silence.

Then another student asked a sharper question: ‘Mr. Cheng, how long does it take to master Chinese?’

Mr. Cheng responded immediately: ‘About 5,000 years.’

What does this illustrate? This isn’t about giving a precise timeframe—it’s about revealing the essence of culture and language. This raises a profound question: What exactly is this essence? Let’s continue.”