I found this ancient book (at least a hundred years old), written by a missionary in China. I found it down in the basement of the huge university library. It was a kind of textbook for learning Chinese. In the front of the book was a list of all of the radicals used in Chinese characters.

(Here’s some information about radicals and stroke order:

http://www.euroasiasoftware.com/english/chinese/learn/grundstreckeng.html#Radikaler )

Anyway, it had the radicals all listed starting with one stroke, then two, etc. and there was a poem that went along with it to help with learning the meaning of each radical and remembering them. Of course, the poem was written in the 19th century and was very outdated, so I was going to rewrite it and learn the radicals one by one. I started this project but never finished it. I copied the page of radicals and the poem from the book but I’m not sure where the copy is right now and I know I couldn’t find the book again.

Well, one of these days I’ll find it in all of my stuff and begin the project again. Learning how to write (and read) Chinese is really impractical for me for the most part. It’s so difficult that I know I’ll never be proficient at it, but it’s fun and it exercises brain power (maybe keep the ole’ neurons firing for a little while longer, hmm?).