Shao Jichen

at awe at Shao's patience even with the relatively clueless learners like ourselves... thank you!

上课特别有意思！让我开阔我的知识 :D

I am a complete beginner in 文言文 and our first lesson involved going through the first half of the Heart Sutra, I now feel confident to read and understand it. Shao 老师 you are very knowledgeable about Buddhist philosophy and scholarship, and able to make the text simple even for a beginner, by explaining the basics of 文言文 along the way. If anyone asks me about beginning self-directed study of 文言文 or Chinese Buddhist texts, I will recommend you to them without hesitation!

we appreciate Shao's inexhaustible patience) thank you!

I have been taking lessons with Jichen for over a year now and I cannot recommend him enough. We started reading the Dao de jing and have moved onto Zhuangzi. Jichen has a truly encyclopedic knowledge of Classical Chinese literature and philology, giving insightful historical context for every character as we read. He relies on a variety of scholarly resources, including comparing different editions of works, as well as later commentaries and even a database of reconstructed pronunciations. He is able to suggest many sources for further study. Despite his impressive breadth of knowledge, he is very willing to listen to questions or alternative opinions and never comes across as condescending. It is amazing that this level of education is available online in this day and age. Jichen is the real deal and if you are interested in a serious, scholarly perspective on Chinese philology, you should look no farther.

It was a great trial lesson, we started reading the Chuci, looking forward to our future classes :)