He is nicknamed the "human printer" because of his perfect Chinese handwriting. A teacher in central China has attracted hundreds of thousands of followers online and hopes to inspire the younger generations.
Zhang Shifeng, who teaches art and calligraphy in Henan province, has also gathered widespread support because his talent is becoming more and more rare in China.
Vast numbers of people mainly communicate digitally, and practising their handwriting is not necessary for most people's day-to-day life.
Zhang has 560,000 followers and millions of likes on Douyin, and he makes videos that explain how he writes the characters.
He writes most of his posts using chalk and a chalkboard, and he tends to pick Chinese proverbs or poems and uses them as a teaching tool.
"Whenever I write on the blackboard, the kids see standardised, pretty characters. They become very interested, especially when I use fonts similar to printing fonts. They often say, 'the printer teacher is coming'," he says in one of his videos.
Charm of writing
Zhang has been interested in calligraphy since he was a child, and he says that he tries to influence his students in their daily work so they could understand the charm of Chinese writing.
"I hope these chalkboard writings would gently influence the students. They can feel the beauty of Chinese characters and the beauty of Chinese culture," he says.
"Through calligraphy, we can find peace, find the best way to communicate with ourselves … It is meaningful to students because they can only do it well by being careful, precise and patient," he says.
Good-looking characters
Zhang specialised in art at university, and then he started practising his handwriting when he became a teacher over a decade ago. He hoped the skill would help make his classes more attractive.
One of his students says: "I used to think that handwriting was just handwriting. But now I find Chinese characters are quite good-looking." Although Chinese handwriting is taught in primary and secondary schools in China, it is common that college students and even adults have forgotten the writing principles.
So much communication in China and around the world is digital, it is normal for the average person to go a long time without using traditional handwriting.
In a survey, almost all of 1,500 university students in Sichuan province, southwestern China, said they had experienced some kind of "Chinese character amnesia" - forgetting how to write a character.
Fun facts
There are more than 50,000 Chinese characters, but only about 20,000 of them are used today. Besides Chinese languages, Chinese characters are also used for writing Japanese.
Quick questions
- What qualities do you need to be a good calligrapher, according to Zhang?
- Which word in the story means "memory loss"?
- Who among your friends and family has the best handwriting?
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