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In Chinese, the oral forms refer to graphic « characters » which represent the entire linguistic sign. This amounts to saying that the signifiers are firmly fixed in the letter, which explains Lacan’s interest for a form of writing which, albeit arbitrary in the Saussurian sense, maintains a proximity with the corporal and the objectal, unknown among the alphabetical languages. Freud had already made the association between the rough and ambiguous aspect of Chinese and the figurative factor in dreams. Today, we are confronted with a third reason for taking an interest in the Chinese letter, in the way psychoanalysis, in its return to China after a long absence, can listen to subjects of a language which is, in many respects, disfigured.