Tongji Student Designs Interactive Chinese Character Stamps
An exhibition featuring Shi Xu's stamp set opened at City of Westminster College in London before touring Paris and Hanover.
Updated on Nov. 13, 2026 in Language Learning
Tongji University student Shi Xu designed a set of interactive Chinese character stamps to help learners remember character structures and meanings. The exhibition Chinese Characters Link the World launched at City of Westminster College in London on November 6, 2026.
Why it matters
Foreign students often find Chinese characters hard to remember, and the stamp set offers a hands-on way to learn their components and meanings. The exhibition's tour across London, Paris, and Hanover shows how the project is reaching learners in several European cities.
The stamp set includes stamps for four characters, including pi, meaning skin, and comes with postcards of intangible cultural heritage images, bookmarks, and ink pads. The exhibition was displayed in three cities (London, Paris, and Hanover), but the source gives no attendance figures or run lengths for the stops outside London.
The players
Shi Xu
Shi Xu is a student at Tongji University in Shanghai who designed the interactive Chinese character stamp set.
Tongji University
Tongji University is a major public research university in Shanghai, China, known for its engineering and design programs.
City of Westminster College
City of Westminster College is a further education college in London that hosted the exhibition and has a partnership with Tongji University.
The details
Each pi stamp is built by reassembling components depicting an animal's head and body, its lifted hide, and a hand. Visitors can use the included bookmarks to build their own phrases, and the set's postcards feature images of intangible cultural heritage. Dozens of guests and students attended the London opening ceremony.
Timeline
November 6, 2026: Exhibition launches at City of Westminster College in London.
November 13, 2026: Coverage of the exhibition is published.
Cultural Outreach
The exhibition continues the long-running overseas promotion of Chinese language and culture associated with the Confucius Institute network, but it is driven by a single university student's design rather than an institutional program. It shows how a hands-on learning tool can carry Chinese characters and intangible cultural heritage into European classrooms.
Learners who want to see the exhibition in person should check with City of Westminster College for its display schedule, since the source only confirms it will remain on display there. The stamp set's bookmarks let visitors practice building their own phrases, so the display can be used as a hands-on study session.
The takeaway
Learning Chinese characters becomes more manageable when their components and meanings are presented as hands-on puzzles rather than memorized lists. The project shows that student-designed learning tools can make cultural content accessible to learners far from its origin.
Further reading
Explore more on Language Learning to see how interactive tools are helping learners master Chinese characters.
Source note: This article includes information reported by China Daily.
