American 'Uncle Hanzi' dedicated to research of Chinese characters

During the past 26 years, he has accumulated a great deal of information on his website -- more than 96,000 ancient Chinese character forms from archeological sources.

"Every character fascinates me. I hope to take people back to the origin of Chinese characters and see how each of them evolved into what it is today," he said.

Up till now, the website has been continuously updated, giving lovers of the ancient language from all over the world free access to browse at their leisure.

"When I analyze each character, I wonder what did the ancient Chinese think," said Sears.

In order to reveal the mystery behind the ancient characters, he spent a great deal of money and time buying and going through dozens of books, living on a shoestring.