The Wadang script exhibited at the Chinese Language Museum. Guangming Daily reporter Chai Rujin/Photo: The creation and use of folk Chinese characters based on Chinese characters were regarded by ancient people as a major event that shook the heavens and earth and wept at ghosts and gods. Therefore, Huainanzi said, "In the past, Cangjie wrote books, while rain and millet made ghosts cry at night." Ancient people did not know where Chinese characters came from, thinking that they were given by gods or created by saints. As a result, many legends about the origin of Chinese characters were left behind, and they showed reverence and admiration for Chinese characters. This led to two directions of folk behavior: first, mysticism, in which people endow Chinese characters with some supernatural power, affecting people's good or bad fortune, gradually forming the worship of the characters as saints and the respect for the characters on paper. Customs such as using characters to treat illnesses. The second is rationalization, where people believe that the form of Chinese characters has a certain structural intention. Some interpretations of structural reasoning pursue systematic science and are academic in nature, such as "Shuowen Jiezi"; Some are not necessarily scientific, but only subjectively associate and freely express the form of Chinese characters, giving them special meanings that they did not originally have. This behavior has a folk nature and belongs to non academic folk interpretation, which exists both ancient and modern times, such as Wang Anshi's "Zi Shuo" in the Song Dynasty and An Zijie's "Bi Wen Jie Zi Ji" in modern times. There is no clear boundary between the academic interpretation of Chinese character formation and the social interpretation, and even Shuowen Jiezi cites many popular interpretations. The popular interpretation of Chinese characters may not meet scientific requirements, but it is also a reflection of the commentator's ideological concepts and academic horizons, and sometimes can also reveal social consciousness or imply education through form. For example, the character "Wang" in "Shuowen Jiezi" does not have a positive explanation, but only cites several different statements: firstly, it quotes Ban Gu's "Baihutong" from the Eastern Han Dynasty and interprets it as "the direction of the world", which is to use "going" to interpret "Wang", belonging to vocal training; The second is to quote Confucius' saying "always three are kings", mainly focusing on the form of characters; The third point is to quote Dong Zhongshu's "Spring and Autumn Fan Lu" from the Western Han Dynasty, which states: "In ancient times, those who created literature connected by three paintings were called kings. Those who drew three paintings were like heaven, earth, and people..." This analysis of the relationship between form and meaning is more specific than Confucius. Later, during the Tang Dynasty, Li Yangbing further supplemented the statements of Confucius and Dong Zhongshu: "The painting in the middle is close to the top. The king is the meaning of heaven." Although these explanations were from scholars, they were actually used to beautify the royal power through subjective interpretation of characters, which can be seen as popular interpretations. From the forms of oracle bone inscriptions and bronze inscriptions, the "king" originally resembled a broad mouthed axe with a short handle, symbolizing the power of life and death. The one who could control the criminal law and possess the power of life and death is the "king". This is the ancient social consciousness reflected in the creation of characters, which is different from the general interpretation. For example, modern people talk about the word "cong": "Students should listen with their ears, think carefully, ask and answer questions with their mouths, and look at the blackboard with both eyes (referring to the two points on the right), so that you will become smarter." The word "cong" sounds from the ear and has a clear structure. The reason for this explanation is obviously to educate students to study hard. In addition to the popular interpretation of Chinese characters, guessing riddles, writing Spring Festival couplets, pasting Fu characters, erecting memorial archway, burying epitaphs, measuring characters and transportation, writing wine orders, carving auspicious seals, making decorative character tiles, writing palindrome poems and spiritual poems, and other word games are all rich and varied customs and habits because of the existence of Chinese characters. Today, the popularity and popularity of ancient and rare characters in modern networks