Not long after Basic Chinese 500 was published, I began receiving the same questions from parents again and again:

“Is there a Basic Chinese 501–1000?”
“What comes next?”
“What should my child read after this?”
“What are they capable of reading now?”

Both the parents and I understood very clearly that learning five hundred characters was only the beginning of the journey.

But graduates of Basic Chinese 500 were no longer at the stage of absorbing language unconsciously through immersion alone. They now needed a different mode of learning.

So I began asking myself:

What does a child need in the next stage? How do we help children move from “learning to read” towards “reading because they want to read”?

That gradually became one of the core questions occupying my mind.

Once children enter formal education, they no longer rely solely on subconscious absorption of language. Instead, they need larger amounts of reading — richer reading, more meaningful reading.

At this age, their imagination and associative thinking become extraordinarily active. They love adventure, challenge, mystery, and fantasy. Stories are no longer merely entertainment to them; stories become a way of understanding the world.

And yet, emotionally, they are still very young. They need to explore friendship, courage, confusion, disappointment, and growth through stories.

I wanted to create a story world compelling enough that children would naturally read long passages of text simply because they wanted to follow the plot.

I wanted to offer children a far more natural — and joyful — way to learn.

Because I noticed something very important: children’s patience while reading stories far exceeds their patience while doing workbook exercises.

As long as a story truly captures them, they will continue turning page after page, sometimes becoming completely absorbed. Reading itself becomes the tool through which they uncover the story. And after all, isn’t that the ultimate purpose of teaching children to read in the first place — to turn reading into a lifelong tool for learning?

And so, Shaolin Chinese (漢字少林) was born.

A group of young heroes pursuing justice, each with their own personality, superpowers, and magical animal companions. Set against the backdrop of Chinese culture, the characters travel through time, encountering the science, inventions, philosophies, and historical figures of different eras.

I wanted children, while following the adventures, to naturally absorb Chinese history, science, philosophy, and culture at the same time.

For children growing up overseas, far away from their cultural roots, this carries an even deeper meaning — it becomes a way of reconnecting with their heritage.

The main storyline of Shaolin Chinese spans twenty-five volumes. Each story contains twists and surprises that young readers do not expect, drawing them forward almost unconsciously through more than 155,000 Chinese characters of long-form reading.

This kind of reading volume is very difficult to achieve through traditional textbooks alone.

I wanted to use the power of storytelling to slowly build children’s reading stamina.

To children, it may feel as though they are simply following a story. But without even realising it, they are gradually growing into genuine readers.

And reading stamina is one of the most important foundations of language ability itself. Without reading stamina, even the best educational materials struggle to achieve their full effect.

Now that nearly half of the series has been published, looking back, I feel that the birth of Shaolin Chinese was really the answer I slowly arrived at while searching for the path children take towards becoming readers.

And throughout the creative process, I myself have grown as well. I have expanded my own knowledge, challenged my own imagination, and experienced something that often feels like a remarkable journey of its own.

Even now, whenever I think about the stories still waiting to be written, my heart begins racing, and I find myself impatient to sit down at my desk and continue.

And this story world, too, is still slowly growing.