On April 16th local time, at the UNESCO headquarters in Paris, France, creative Chinese character symbols were arranged in a staggered manner in the S é gur Hall. A contemporary art and design exhibition, "The Wisdom of Chinese Characters: Design and Communication of Chinese Character Culture," was being held here. As an important part of the 2026 United Nations Chinese Language Day celebration, this exhibition is jointly organized by the Academy of Fine Arts at Tsinghua University, the Center for Chinese Ancient Script Art at Tsinghua University, and the French Chinese Character Festival Association, aiming to showcase the charm of Chinese characters to the world from a design perspective. The exhibition consists of four sections: "Origin and Development of Chinese Characters", "Chinese Character Structure and Architecture", "Chinese Character Decoration and Beautification", and "Chinese Character Innovation and Cultural Communication". Through various forms such as graphic visual art, art installations, information visualization charts, three-dimensional books, and video images, the art and design wisdom of Chinese characters integrated into various aspects of clothing, food, housing, and transportation will be vividly presented. The audience can intuitively see that Chinese characters not only carry semantics, but their construction itself is a design practice that spans thousands of years. At the opening ceremony of the exhibition, Talha, President of the UNESCO General Conference, delivered a speech stating that "Chinese is not only a tool for communication, but also an art." He specifically mentioned that Chinese calligraphy was included in the UNESCO Representative List of the Intangible Cultural Heritage of Humanity in 2009, which is a testament to the unique characteristics of Chinese language. The form of each Chinese character carries meaning, reflecting humanity's observation, imagination, and understanding of the world for thousands of years. As a concrete expression of Chinese character culture, Chinese character design has always been present in the development of ancient and modern societies. ”Chen Nan, a professor and chief planner at Tsinghua University, stated that this exhibition approaches from the perspective of "design wisdom" and focuses on presenting the achievements of him and his team in the field of Chinese character art design and cultural dissemination over the past 30 years. He hopes to break the dry impression of linguistics through the exhibition and provide new perspectives for people to understand and learn Chinese characters in an international and contemporary context. The most attractive thing to the audience at the exhibition is undoubtedly the oracle bone inscriptions hidden in the artwork. A three-dimensional device resembling a tiger, upon closer inspection, is actually composed of six oracle bone script characters - "eyes, ears, heart, self (nose), mouth, and again (hand)", corresponding to the "six senses" of vision, hearing, sensation, smell, taste, and touch. The oracle bone script patterns drawn on the plate are both calligraphy and painting, full of wit and humor. Combining the patterns of the Five Elements, Heavenly Stems and Earthly Branches, and mythological legends, Chinese characters and cultural philosophy are condensed into a square inch, with profound implications. In ancient China, philology was known as' primary school 'and was the fundamental gateway to cultural classics, "said Chen Nan. There is a unique display board that features input emoticons designed with oracle bone script, which can be embedded in both Chinese paragraphs and English text without affecting the meaning. This ability to communicate across languages is like the globally popular emoji today. Emojis are essentially a type of 'ideographic symbol' that can be seen as a 'pictographic script'. ”Chen Nan explained, "We have reached a consensus on the meanings of many emoticons, and their semantic logic is highly similar to Chinese characters - which precisely confirms the modern value of the Chinese character system." The ideas conveyed by the exhibition also affect Chinese language teaching. As a specially invited curator for the exhibition, the renowned French sinologist Bai Lesang has long adhered to the concept of "character centeredness" in teaching Chinese as a foreign language based on the semantic characteristics and connotations of Chinese characters. Not long ago, he also held a lecture on "Chinese Characters and Their Poetic Functions" at the Chinese Cultural Center in Paris, introducing the unique charm of Chinese characters to the French public through examples of Chinese character design on the streets and alleys. Chinese characters have a poetic quality that other characters cannot match, and this characteristic is unique to Chinese language, "said Bai Lesang. In his opinion, this exhibition has magnified this poetic and intelligent nature in a concentrated and intuitive way. At Tsinghua University, Chen Nan has also set up the Chinese character design course, which was originally aimed at art students, as a general elective course, hoping to "use the dimension of design to make more non art students re-examine and love Chinese character culture". During the one week exhibition, the exhibition not only moved the staff of UNESCO, but also attracted many local people. Philippe, a Frenchman working in the field of financial investment, lives near the headquarters of UNESCO. Although he does not speak Chinese, he is quite interested in the history of Sino French exchanges. The influence of language and culture is also part of soft power. With China's increasing attention to its role on the international stage, the attractiveness of Chinese people's thoughts, culture, and language will definitely increase. "Li Ye, a Chinese teacher at Paris Saint Germain University, shared a detail: on the day of the exhibition opening, an old gentleman expressed his desire to learn Chinese to her. In daily teaching, Li Ye often uses simple oracle bone inscriptions such as "day" and "month" to introduce the meaning and origin of Chinese characters to students. Professor Chen's systematic research has brought new perspectives and inspirations to teaching. The animations that integrate traditional festivals and Chinese character culture are vivid and lively, making them excellent teaching materials. At the exhibition site, the Chinese character theme page planned and launched by the People's Daily Overseas Edition also attracted many viewers to stop and read. The page introduces the long history and contemporary development of Chinese characters, vivid cases, and exquisite designs, which are pleasing to the eye. Ms. Wang, a Chinese practitioner of traditional Chinese medicine in Paris, took a photo of the exhibition with her phone and recorded the entire exhibition with a video. She said, "Whether in terms of content or form, this newspaper has great collection value. After reading the newspaper, one can feel more that Chinese characters are the roots of the Chinese people and the influence of Chinese character culture on the world." She hopes that there will be more exhibitions like this in the future, allowing people to appreciate the diversity of Chinese culture through different media. (New Society)