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Return To Complex Characters Proposal, Netizen Reactions

by on Friday, March 6, 2009 149 comments

i-want-to-write-simplified-complex-characters

Right now, the NPC (National People’s Congress) and CPPCC (Chinese People’s Political Consultative Conference) are happening in China. One of the proposals that were made by committee members in these organizations was to restore, resume, resurrect, or return to traditional/complex Chinese characters.

traditional-vs-simplified-open-picture-fun-learn

Here are some of the reactions by Chinese netizens:

From Tianya:

Must Not Restart Complex Characters, Otherwise Everyone Will Suffer

This person is against the proposal and makes 5 points:

  1. The cost of changing textbooks. The students who go to school must bear these costs because the country will not pay for them. If we say the textbooks are not expensive, only a few dozen kuai, what about the impoverished areas who already cannot afford the these few dozen kuai textbooks? What about all the university students who graduate this year who do not know how to read or write complex characters, what will they do? Go back to school and relearn everything? Who will pay for it?
  2. Will bad bad for doing business also, because signs and advertisements will all need to be changed. How much money must be spent to
  3. The cost for the government for things like government seals, etc., all need to be changed. Each only costs a few dozen kuai but has everyone thought of how many government departments are in all of China? These costs are all paid by the ordinary common people!
  4. This language problem will affect every aspect of the people’s lives and cost an enormous amount of resources for the people. Who will pay for everything in the end? The ordinary common people.
  5. The ressurection of complex characters looks like a simple thing, but it will affect over a bilion people. If the CPPCC has so much desire to do something, they should spend their energy on “reforming education, medical care, housing, employment, etc.”

Comments:

冷月流星:

His mother’s dog fart! [Bullshit!]
Even if the legislature uses complex/traditional characters, how many people will truly go use it?
Will computers need to invent a new complex character input method?
Do not mention this again, those who have this kind of thought are all SB.

顺民一个:

I am speechless, changing simplified to complex, I can foresee this being something more difficult than medical reform. Even if the entire country’s teachers get training in batches is already almost impossible to accomplish. It is basically an unrealistic/impractical thing.

金刚玉米:

Chinese culture needs complex characters as a carrier to transmit it on [to future generations].

jhwind2008:

It has already been 60 years since the founding of the country [New China].
Does China have more culture now? — No!
Does resurrecting complex characters mean getting culture? — No!
Is China really 5000 years of civilization/culture? –No!  Cockroach civilization/culture! Only cockroaches can endure and survive so comfortably in this kind of situation!!!!
What is wrong with having things a little easier/simpler??!!!

飞葡萄:

There are a lot of things we can no longer go back to!
It is impossible for us to use complex characters again.
Or are you telling us to start all over and learn complex characters?

苦海潜水难免冒泡:

This group eats shit and shits food. How many important things in society have not been handled, such as the economic crisis, rising unemployment rate, university student employment, migrant worker pay, unequal distribution, corruption,…these they do not want to fix, and they spend all day thinking one moment of changing to complex characters, another moment of changing to simplified characters, another moment changing to Japanese characters, fuck, if you guys think your eggs/balls hurt, go home by yourself and take care of it, making some silly proposals, truly so stupid!

顺民一个:

I really get the feeling that those who support complex characters are all non-mainland people, because they all support these things that cost money but do nothing. Are you all just trying to get the mainland ordinary common people to spend more money and  suffer more, so then China will collapse like the previous Soviet Union, or even become a new colony before you will be happy?

namp:

Poor elementary school students.
I remember back in my time the elementary school student punishment regulations was copying/writing something 100 times and I spent an entire night copying. I bet if it would have taken twice as long if it were complex characters.

崔特:

Resurrecting complex characters is like asking women to restart binding their feet.

Amacsu:

This issue has the same reasons as whether or not to learn English…
It is enough to have some genius be cultivated/trained to a professional level. Let them research, inherit, and carry on. Is it worthwhile to have all the people do it?
What I am interested in, I am willing to learn, so whether you resurrect it or not has nothing to do with me.
What I am not interested in, I will not want to learn, so if you force me to learn, will I learn it well?
I find these stupid cunt representatives the most annoying, are they bored nervous or are they afraid of losing face if they do not propose something? Looking at things from one side, having learned decades of Mao Thought, their experience not even the level of a middle school graduate…whose tragedy is this…[their's or our country's?]?

妍子Chceni:

Talking about cross-straits relations, all bullshit. Why should 1.3 billion people change for Hong Kong and Taiwan, huh?~

何突突:

I support complex characters, because I believe every ethnicity’s history cannot be cut off so wantonly,  so roughly, without reason, and artificially. Our ethnicity cannot, in the span of a few years, become unable to recognize our own forefather’s language, unable to understand the culture of the land we exist on. Strongly support restarting/resurrecting complex characters! [This comment was written in complex characters]

evolution-of-chinese-characters

From Tianya:

Abolish Simplified Characters And Resume Complex Characters, Do Our Billions Of Countrymen Agree?!

This post-topic was also against the complex characters proposal. It was very long so here are some of the more interesting things:

  • Argues that Mao Zedong and the Communist Party originally simplified characters to improve illiteracy rate and allow the Chinese people to spend more time learning and developing other fields to advance China.
  • Simplified characters also developed to to “lighten the burden” for foreigners so they can learn Chinese faster, better, and promote international cultural exchange.
  • The only people who support the abolition of simplified Chinese characters are 1. people who like to impose their will on other people and show off. 2. “Certain groups at home or abroad” who want to split/divide China and destroy the glory and accomplishments of Communist China’s first 30 years.
  • Gives examples of Anglo-American simplification: colour > color, favour > favor, odour > odor, hippopotamus > hippo, rhinoceros > rhino，Christmas > Xmas, television > TV, federal government > fed gov, Republican Party > GOP, George Walker Bush > G. W. Bush, How are you?/How are you doing? > How ya? How ya doin?，I agree/I accept/No problem/etc. > OK.
  • Says Anglo-American countries are hypocrites who also simplify their language so “communications will be easier, learning will be easier, the society can develop faster, and the people can become more creative” but do not want the Chinese to enjoy the same.

Comments:

fushiqing:

Every year there are some stupid cunt committee members who suggest a few pointless proposals, simply wasting public resources and playing to the gallery. How are these stupid cunts qualified to represent us?

再不行我要生气了:

Too lazy to read the entire essay, but just reading the title, I am against it. When I write simplified characters, I still dislike how many strokes there are, I am lazy.

夏天的梅子:

There is nothing bad about restarting complex characters!
No one said it has to be like Putonghua [Mandarin] and spread so that everyone knows! Only to have the people know it a little, and anyway this is also Chinese culture!

jpttu:

Some things may be bothersome but worth it. For example, any “tea culture”. Is it not just making a cup of tea, why make it so complicated?? I support having us reacquaint ourselves with our complex characters, but do not advocate replacing simplified characters!

yuh1985:

What I do not understand is, why should 1.3 billion people always have to listen to some stupid cunt proposals to please 20-30 million people?…Is that not a little lacking in self-respect/self-identity?

xlgigi:

Looks like I will have to relearn language, so sad~~~

虫虫族:

The more this old committee member lives, the more backwards he goes…he should propose that we start to use bone inscriptions…bone inscriptions are the real traditional written language of the Chinese ethnicity…but does he know them? …If China were all like this old pedant…that would truly be China’s tragedy…

中华汉魂:

Support, if we do not say something, the government might really go back to complex characters. Those above who support complex characters, I simply do not believe you guys can really write all the complex characters.

温江风子:

I have not yet decided, do not represent me, please.

simplified-vs-complex-car

Click to see a funny blog post: "The Chinese Character I Hate the Most"

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149 Comments

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  1. peter
    Monday, March 9, 2009 at 2:41 pm

    It should be traditional, to maintain the continuity, entomologigal integrity and geographical unity of the language, and a phonetic system like bopomofo for ease and literacy. simplifying was a well meant idea that was poorly conceived and executed. It represents bastardization, not evolution or progress. phase it back gradually, there need be no cost, just say new things must be in trad.

    Reply
  2. Mike Fish
    Monday, March 9, 2009 at 3:07 pm

    It’s not as if traditional characters have ever really disappeared from China so maybe reverting or integrating character systems would not be as impossible as some have suggested. Those of us who live in China see traditional characters everyday; advertising, entertainment, religion, the arts, and other sectors often use traditional characters. In Fujian, Guangdong, and Guangxi traditional characters are everywhere. Some cities and towns in those provinces have much of their signage in traditional characters. This shows using the characters isn’t a problem and many people in China already accept them. What the government could do is rather than forcing or actively supporting character system reversion or integration it could just remove regulations that forbid or limit traditional character usage. Just allowing traditional characters to be used in more ways would let the people, via the market, decide whether they want them back or not. If traditional characters then become “popular”, the government can then actively support reintroduction. Just a thought.

    Reply
  3. runnie
    Monday, March 9, 2009 at 3:10 pm

    1 billion Chinese people in mainland will kill traditional chinese culture in the end. It is too powerful. Cultural revolution is coming to Hong kong and Taiwan near you.

    Reply
  4. Truth Hurtz
    Monday, March 9, 2009 at 4:11 pm

    Changing ‘fonts’ will not be part of a reunification equation. That statement got fallacy written all over it. Whoever thinks changing fonts will allow Taiwan to all of a sudden embrace Mainland with open arms is high on something that I would like a sample.

    Reply
  5. hoklodude
    Monday, March 9, 2009 at 6:29 pm

    Traditional Chinese won’t ever disappear because Cantonese is intrinsically based. Taiwan Mandarin will always be Traditional Chinese because the anti-commie’s ideologically opposed it and fight for tooth and nail over it.

    Giving in to simplified Chinese is kowtowing to the commie party that kicked them out of the mainland. Hence, there is always be traditional Chinese.

    Simplified Chinese needs to roll back silly crap like 后 which means queen and after. It should be 後 that means after. 后 is reserve the empress.

    Reply
  6. l00l
    Tuesday, March 10, 2009 at 5:02 am

    You’re right, man !
    THey should at least get rid of these stupid mistakes !

    中華民國萬歲 lol

    Reply
  7. Phil7
    Tuesday, March 10, 2009 at 7:23 am

    Important announcement: “The Chinese government will never, ever change back to traditional charactars!”

    …sorry guys!

    Reply
  8. james
    Tuesday, March 10, 2009 at 10:40 am

    man, i have to start introductory chinese over again

    Reply
  9. Mike Fish
    Tuesday, March 10, 2009 at 10:47 am

    USTCer… are you certain there are no laws and regulations about using traditional characters in certain secors or in certain ways? Why is there not a single traditonal characters’ magazine or newspaper published in China? Can textbooks be printed in traditional? subtitles on TV? text in government pamphlets and propoganda? street signs?

    Could someone out there answer this?

    Reply
    • Kai
      Tuesday, March 10, 2009 at 12:08 pm

      I remember reading a post on some other blog I can’t remember that the tv channel logos you see on the corner of your screen need to be in Chinese instead of English.

      Reply
  10. pauline
    Tuesday, March 10, 2009 at 11:00 am

    These children in China need to stop whining. People who live abroad become learn both sets of characters. It really isn’t so bad.

    Reply
  11. brilliant laowai
    Tuesday, March 10, 2009 at 11:23 am

    Cracks me up how the Chinese can make something so simple so damned complex. Laowai go it right with only 26 letters!!!!

    Reply
  12. Shanghai Slim
    Tuesday, March 10, 2009 at 12:16 pm

    Report from the Field

    I just took an informal survey of about 30 urban, college-educated Chinese mainlanders – mostly white collar workers, plus a few college students. I asked them about the proposal to return to the use of “fantizi” (complex characters).

    The result: 100% said “NO”.

    Many were quite emphatic, openly scoffing at the idea.

    The number one reason cited: it takes longer to write. The second most common reason was the additional time/effort in learning.

    Some voiced the opinion that if anyone had interest in the aesthetics or cultural aspects of traditional characters, they could study them. For everyone else, it was more a matter of basic practicality.

    I asked some of them what percentage of their daily writing was done in longhand, the typical response was about 20% – 30%.

    I also asked some if they could read and write “fantizi”. All I asked had some ability, ranging from a little to a lot.

    This admittedly unscientific survey reinforced my suspicion that many of those who advocate the use of complex characters on the basis of factors such as beauty, cultural connection, etc are foreigners who study Chinese language, and care more about these things. I think if you ask people who use written Chinese as a *daily communication tool*, the priorities are different, with “ease of use” carrying a great deal more significance than cultural continuity or elegance.

    Reply
  13. salyahoo
    Wednesday, March 11, 2009 at 1:28 am

    Of course in a survey by Chinese mainlander would produce the result of 100% NO return to traditional characters. If they said YES, they get their ass beat by government undercovers. You don’t hold live votes on this topic. Just don’t. Wrong place.

    Reply
  14. Tradition
    Wednesday, March 11, 2009 at 4:28 am

    The literacy rate in Taiwan and Hong Kong is the highest in the great China area. Both place are using traditional characters(so-called Complex characters). Mainland China has adopted Simplified characters for a half of century but still with 25% illiteracy people. By the way, people always use the English term “traditional characters”,not “Complex characters” around the world. So “complex characters” on this website should be corrected.

    Reply
  15. Allan
    Wednesday, March 18, 2009 at 2:21 am

    I think traditional characters will be preserved at least in terms of people being able to read them particularly the younger generation. You HAVE to be able to read them if you want to sing KTV or memorize all the songs… not likely.

    Reply
  16. Y Y Chen
    Sunday, March 22, 2009 at 9:34 pm

    It was a pity the traditional characters were bastardized when the Communists took over the country! Many traditional, historic, cultural heritages ruined and destroyed forever since (no thanks to them!). Simplified characters perhaps served its purpose (increase literacy rate, easier for foreigners to learn, etc but these excuses are pretty lame).

    To change back to traditional characters is not about an inconvenience to 1.3 billion people, nor it about suiting the Taiwanese and Hong Kong Chinese.

    In fact it is about all the Chinese people, all 1.3 billion, or 1300 millions of us; we, as a proud and cultural human race, finally come to respect and recognize these beautiful writing characters again. We have a 5000 years of culture, the traditional Chinese characters took this long to develop and evolve. Some may say tough because in these 60 years since 1949 it is part of the revolution and evolution, too. However, we, as a Chinese race, we are wrong to accept these traditional characters fading out or disappeared simply because of a hasty and wrong decision made by one party or one regime at a bad time. It brought a loss to a race and culture.

    Traditional Chinese writing characters are basically logographic writing system, one of the greatest writing systems in the world if not the greatest. By 1400 BC the script included some 2,500 to 3,000 characters, most of which can be read to this day.

    The sad fact is judging by some the comments made by the fellow readers, some use rather fowl languages, I have a feeling that majority of people do not even know what the traditional characters are about, rather ignorant and narrow-minded.

    The traditional characters are just so much more civilized and aesthetic. It is estimated to be about 2000 characters been simplified, it is really not that many and not that difficult. There are many softwares in the market that can translate both in an instant.

    髮/发; 臺/台; 邊/边; 燦/灿; 門/门; 聲/声; 賓/宾; 豐/丰

    The above short list may put off some of you, but I do think Chinese as a race we should revert and preserve this writing glory and supremacy in order to present ourselves to the world it is something worth doing, it just takes courage and time.

    Thank you for your time reading and sharing my thoughts.

    Reply
  17. Alex
    Monday, March 23, 2009 at 11:58 am

    People in mainland should not be forced to re-learn complex characters.

    As long as, mainland policy re-allows the usage of complex characters in official locations (e.g. business signs), in addition to simplified characters, that would sound good to me (which I grew up in Hong Kong).

    What means: people can pick and choose whichever character set in their official business sign or document. We can decide what are characters that are being taught in schools in China later.

    In reality, some Chinese people have already get used to using both set of characters, particularly, business people who travel among a number of Asian destinations (mainland: using simplified, taiwan and hong kong using complex, korea and japan: using traditional characters in some situations).

    And, I agree with “Y Y Chen”: the Chinese characters have not changed much since 200BC. It would be easier for Chinese students to study Chinese ancient culture, if they know complex characters.

    Another interesting comments posted at:
    http://mattschiavenza.com/?p=486
    a compromised solution is to revert back to those traditional characters, which are now represented by one simplified character (e.g. behind vs queen; rich vs hair). That will regain expressiveness of Chinese written language.

    Reply
  18. CanadianBornChinese604
    Friday, April 10, 2009 at 2:01 am

    Geeze,

    Humans have been on earth for over 150,000 years. Tribal wars over differences in each other over color, language, culture, way of of life, etc.

    The weakest link dies off while the strongest survive through generations–survival of the fittest. It’s in nature.

    I am Chinese and even my Chinese grand parents think the Chinese language is old and needs to be changed or “evolve”. The Japanese language had “evolved” from and around the Chinese language and the Japanese langauge is way much more efficient in learning and writing than the Chinese writing.

    When I was a kid, Chinese was my first language then English.

    In my college years, when I learned Japanese, I had found that the Japanese language is the easiest and the most efficient in writing and typing on a computer than Chinese. To write/type a full sentence is in Japanese is so much faster than using all Chinese characters. Even faster in English.

    I predict, that if the Chinese system will not evolve and adapt to the changing world, the Chinese system will become like ancient Egyption Hieroglyphs or the ancient Sumerian Cuneiforms.

    Reply
  19. Mauricio
    Saturday, April 18, 2009 at 11:13 am

    i think complex characters are a very important part in the chinese culture… i read in this site that it will be so complicated for foreign students… i’m a chinese student.. and here we learn with complex characters and we really think it’s more easy to remenber.. maybe it’s a bit more hardly for write.. but easier for learn.. because the character type and if you know the meaning of the character’s part.. you can learn more words easily… in my experience i saw that foreigners using complex characters learn to read chinese faster than simplified characters students.

    Reply
  20. fcuk china
    Wednesday, June 17, 2009 at 5:49 pm

    The news in Taiwan now is that Ma Yingjiu wants to switch to simplified. China should not have to lose out by revamping textbooks and what not, but none of you guys get the point here: The whole issue of simplified and traditional exists because of politics. Singapore is so far up China’s ass so they use simplified. Taiwan, HK and Macau use traditional because they were never forced not to. The mainlanders can argue and present reasons for anything they disagree with, for example, simplified is already hard enough, why use traditional? The only culture they have is Communism, or some fucked up Chinese form of it and simplified is the product and language of that system. For those whities mouthing off based on your own ignorance and failure to learn Chinese, go get a fucking life!

    Reply
  21. 芳
    Saturday, July 25, 2009 at 3:47 am

    I write both,both r good!!!

    Reply
  22. Lu
    Thursday, July 30, 2009 at 1:17 am

    I like the simplification to be in between. I really from the bottom of my heart admire how the Japanese simplified theirs. Kanji retains most of the traditional characters simplifying only the ones with high stroke numbers. What’s so admiring is the simplified characters yet retains their aesthetics!

    Reply
  23. jin
    Tuesday, August 4, 2009 at 1:46 pm

    some people say simplifying chinese is part of the language evolution. But in fact simplified Chinese is used by Mao in Cultural Revolution to get rid of “old China”, Mao went on to destroy Chinese arts and any cultural artifacts.
    The complex characters truly represents the natural evolution of Chinese language. Unlike Mao’s simplifed Chinese which is used to undermine Old China, so Mao can shape China in his old image, for selfish reason.
    Traditional complex characters are created with rich symbolism and wisdom that is almost completely lost in the new simplified script.
    Simplified Chinese is a disgrace to the thousands years wisdom of the Chinese characters.

    Reply
  24. torokun
    Tuesday, August 11, 2009 at 4:42 am

    Some of you should really take a look at the Japanese simplifications of some characters like these examples from wikipedia:

    (Trad, China, Japan, meaning)

    龍 龙 竜 dragon
    歲 岁 歳 age, year
    轉 转 転 turn
    廣 广 広 wide, broad
    惡 恶 悪 bad, evil
    豐 丰 豊 abundant
    腦 脑 脳 brain
    樂 乐 楽 fun
    氣 气 気 air

    It is excruciatingly obvious for these how much more balanced the Japanese versions are, and also how much more recognizable they are vis-a-vis the traditional characters.

    Also look at these:

    (Trad, China, Japan)
    關 关 関
    觀 观 観
    應 应 応
    穩 稳 穏
    歸 归 帰
    輕 轻 軽
    讀 读 読

    Too bad China will never consider many of these forms, simply because the Japanese developed them!

    Reply
  25. jkbqwkeb
    Sunday, September 20, 2009 at 9:28 pm

    I definitely think that China should adopt its real writing system. The simplified characters were and are nothing but a crazy scam by Mao drawing a strong line between traditional China and the new communist regime.

    Reply
  26. MAOCUNT
    Wednesday, September 30, 2009 at 11:45 am

    Mao Tse Tung and his lackies created the simpified characters so that ROC, Hong Kong (free China) and Communist China have different writing. He dont wan them to have as much difficulties to know the truth from western sources. Honestly, how hard is it to learn traditional compare to simpified, honestly it is not that much. Yet, Mao is an obssessive bitch that wan to be another shi haungdi. He proposes alot of stupid ideas, steal credits and make up history. After 1949, Mao is just a trash stealing credits from Zhou Enlai, Peng Dehuai and other compatriots just like how he bullshit the long march (retreat), war against Japan (Mao is hiding in his cave), and stuff up. Today, his hardwork paid off with so much dumbasses in mainland that follow his example. Pirating, selling poisonous food, all start with Mao.

    Reply
  27. zach
    Thursday, November 19, 2009 at 1:16 pm

    traditional characters must be reinstated
    since most ppl use zuyinfuhao for typing etc, what difference would it make?
    plus learning traditional forms enables easier learning since you understnad the inherent meanings within each character.
    bring it back, for science’s sake.

    Reply
  28. Gaz
    Monday, January 11, 2010 at 4:32 pm

    Why do Chinese always bring “foreigners” into EVERY issue. First they don’t want foreigners getting involved with their ‘internal’ affairs at all, now, when they have something that actually IS an internal affair (chinese ‘reps’ and chinese culture) and NO foreign government has ANY position on because THEY DON’T GIVE A FK, now they say “its because foreigners want us to spend more money”. WTF??? REALLY??? Does EVERYTHING bad/controversial in China have to be caused by foreigners???

    Reply
  29. outcast
    Friday, April 2, 2010 at 3:12 pm

    If this proposal goes through it will prove that Chinese culture is an evolutionary dead end, doomed to extinction. Countries that focus on their culture, usually do so because they have accomplished so little.

    Cultures that dont move forward and evolve, stagnate and die.

    Reply
  30. outcast
    Friday, April 2, 2010 at 9:02 pm

    “We have a 5000 years of culture,”

    Irrelevant. All civilizations have a history dating back thousands of years, one more or less thousand changes nothing.

    “Many traditional, historic, cultural heritages ruined and destroyed forever since (no thanks to them!).”

    Yes like footbinding. How dare chinese civilization FINALLY begin to move forward and break out of this Dark Age. How dare women have rights. How dare people start living a MODERN life.

    “However, we, as a Chinese race, we are wrong to accept these traditional characters fading out or disappeared simply because of a hasty and wrong decision made by one party or one regime at a bad time. ”

    That’s called evolution. Successful civilizations change and evolve over time, weak ones stagnate. For example, the English language has changed considerably overtime. This is an example of old english:

    “Hwæt! wē Gār-Dena in geār-dagum,”

    That’s from Beowulf. The wikipedia page has more info about that if anyone is interested http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Old_english

    “one of the greatest writing systems in the world if not the greatest. ”

    I dont believe this, you call other people narrow minded for wanting to move on when you make such an ethnocentric remark as this.

    “The sad fact is judging by some the comments made by the fellow readers, some use rather fowl languages, I have a feeling that majority of people do not even know what the traditional characters are about, rather ignorant and narrow-minded.”

    We all know what it is about, it’s a system of communication just like any other written script.

    “The traditional characters are just so much more civilized and aesthetic.”

    If being civilized is your concern, why not push people to act more civilized? Being able to write pretty is meaningless when people allow their children to urinate in the streets, when people throw their garbage everywhere, when people spit and smoke everywhere. All you want to do is hold China back, instead of pushing it to develop more and face the future.

    “There are many softwares in the market that can translate both in an instant.”

    We don’t live in a paperless society, people still need to write using pen and paper sometimes. To overly complicate to fulfill your own desires is selfish.

    “but I do think Chinese as a race we should revert and preserve this writing glory and supremacy in order to present ourselves to the world it is something worth doing, it just takes courage and time.”

    Supremacy, eh? Yet another narrow minded ethnocentric remark. If you’re so interested in preserving your “supremacy” then why use all of this foreign invented technology? Why not use chinese invented technology only? Come on, how about it?

    “The literacy rate in HK is 94.6%, China 90.9%”

    The literacy rate in the US is 99%.

    Let’s not forget, China was in a Dark Age for most of the Ming dynasty which ran all the way until recently. During that time there was little in the way of new written works, no new ideas, philosophies, inventions (and they even forgot some of their own inventions), because they believed they were perfect and “superior”, even though many people were dying of cyclical famine; a problem that was conquered by another western invention the late Qing wanted no part of – fertilizer. China today is getting better, thanks to fresh ideas and technology coming from the west, but in many respects it is still desperately poor and backward. What caused it to fall behind was a combination of racism, complacency, and narrow mindedness. Perhaps we should thank Y Y Chen for showing us that this complacency and narrow mindedness is still alive and well today, ensuring the continuation of the Chinese Dark Age.

    Reply
  31. Christie
    Saturday, April 10, 2010 at 12:29 pm

    Does no one realize that Chinese characters are keeping China stuck in the past, and limiting national advancement on a global scale? True, fantizi (and jiantizi, by extension) are a VERY important aspect of the Chinese identity, but a character system is absolutely primitive. It’s unfortunate, but if China really wants to develop, it needs to use an easy-to-learn phonetic alphabet on a large scale. How can a world power cling to such an impractical system? It’s illogical.

    Reply
  32. 支持简体
    Wednesday, July 14, 2010 at 12:19 am

    I never heard that a Chinese could not to read traditional characters. if you are using simplified characters in daily life, to learning traditional characters is not a problem. Traditional characters is hard to write and read for communication. and waste a lot of time for a child and foreigner to learn.

    Reply
  33. danny
    Wednesday, October 13, 2010 at 11:54 am

    digirata for china and taiwan

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    digirata AT gmail DOT com

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    在網路上可以與所有的人相處融洽，但也可能全然不是那麼回事。
    若要跟網友們保持友好關係，千萬別在網路上指責其他人或參與網路欺凌、網路跟蹤。

    沉著且清楚地在網路上發表你的想法和感受，然後閱讀其他人說的話，他們也想傳達好的故事及想法。
    遠離網路上暴怒的人以及他們所說的事，特別是那些網路惡霸。

    假使你有部落格，那就懷抱著興趣停留在自己的部落格吧！記住，這才是當個優良部落客的好技巧，甘巴茶(日語加油之意)。
    一旦你要提供給某人個人資料時請小心，像是電子郵件地址或電話號碼，因為
    在這世界上許多人想要竊取你的密碼、個人資料，甚至是你的錢！

    在網路上，只要你想，你隨時都可傾聽朋友說話，也許他是個部落客，也許是臉書上的朋友，
    但請別過度上網，你總是需要些時間拔掉電腦插頭，然後好好享受每週的「DO YOUR BEST!」。

    你是一個數位時代的孩子，所以你完全有權力來享受網路的無限可能，享受歡樂！

    網路世界是很酷，但也得小心，因為有些人想透過網路來傷害你、擾亂你，但別讓他們得逞了！
    請記住：雖然網路併行著各種問題，但它仍是一個美麗的線上世界。

    快樂，要快樂！用最簡單的符號做到所有的可能，並努力做個快樂的 24/7， 偶爾離線放鬆一下吧！

    Reply
  34. Mima
    Thursday, March 10, 2011 at 2:54 am

    Hello,

    First I must say you have a nice blog that I appreciate very much.
    As a foreigner I’m learning now simplified characters for over one year and everytime I try to memorize a character (without being the basic ones such as 木, 田,雨, 心) I can’t really find where that character came from. Because, at least to me, to learn these characters I must know where it came from, its true meaning, do you understand? Why is that?
    Do we foreigners learn Latin IN PRIMARY SCHOOL so we can understand the true meaning of english, portuguese, spanish, italian and french? No we don’t do it. We memorize our alphabet and also other words. Why is so easy then? Well, maybe because when we are children we have a better memory, that’s why that the more younger you are the more easy learning a language is for you. But in high school or at the university you can learn latin and things come so much easier, you come to understand grammar better and also you won’t use your dictionary so much.

    Because English (all the latin languages and also more langugages in the world) are so much different than Chinese , the order of our teacher “just memorize it”( as they did in primary school) doesn’t work for us, at least for me. All of the characters, either simplified or traditional have some strokes that have to be memorized. But for me, that I’m learning simplified characters with my teacher it’s confusing, I may remember 15 characters in one/ week but the next week or day at least 5 characters will disappear! Oh wait, you are a foreigner! you have few contact with china. I tell you that’s not it, I may speak chinese but to write is something complex to me. I try to chatt on QQ whith mailand native speakers and it’s not easy!

    I tried then to know the real meaning of the character I went to this site http://zhongwen.com/ and the most funny is that they explain the real meaning with the traditional one… odd, isn’t it. I said to me…” maybe traditional characters are easiear to learn”, THEY HAVE MORE STrOKES, but THEY MAKE SENSE!

    i DON’T WANT TO OFFEND NO ONE, PLEASE. DURING THIS TIME I THOUGT I WAS AWKWARD FOR THINKING LIKE THIS, BUT IT SEEMS TO ME THAT THE NUMBER OF FOREIGNERS THAT THINK THAT TRADITIONAL CHARACTERS ARE EASIER IS GROWING.

    I will leave here a blog of a german that claims that traditional characters are easier to study and also to memorise. The examples he gives are my arguments. and like me he first learnt simplified characters so he knows what he’s talkig about

    http://themandarinproject.blogspot.com/2007/03/traditional-vs-simplified-characters.html

    And one more thing, I think China could still have the simplied characters and teach the traditional ones in high school for example so people will have their own opinion about the issue. It will be easier for them to contact with other regions o such as hong knog, macau and taiwan. and also they could read the classicals

    Thanks

    Reply
  35. Senor Boogie Woogie
    Thursday, March 31, 2011 at 5:40 pm

    I the foreigner want to keep the simplified set because this is the ones that I am familiar with. I do know some traditional characters, but not many.

    To me (again as a foreigner) it is not so much that it was “simplified” in that it took another shape, and really after 10 years and knowing several hundred, I don’t want to go back and relearn them.

    The characters are already too numerous and too difficult to write unless you have studied how to do it from childhood or really studied as an adult. Why make them harder? Yes, have some traditional characters as decoration. But don’t go back to the old system.

    Reply
  36. Anoymous
    Monday, April 4, 2011 at 5:42 am

    Oh hey they left out the following choices…
    1. “I am Taiwanese – simplified characters”
    2. “I am Taiwanese – complex characters”

    Reply
  37. zongzong
    Sunday, April 10, 2011 at 11:51 pm

    我个人比较认同的是识繁书简，能够认识繁体字比较好，而实际操作和生活中使用简体字，
    如果认为全面恢复繁体所面临的困难比较大，跟国民带来的种种不便也很多，字体演变本身就是个过程，繁简之争，多少还是要从实际考虑问题，
    就像一位网友说的：“要恢复繁体字，不如直接恢复到甲骨文算了！”

    Reply
  38. dawei
    Sunday, March 18, 2012 at 8:22 pm

    Interesting. It seems the vast majority of mainlanders would say no way to traditional characters, but the majority of ChinaSmack comments are in favor of it.

    Says something about the average ChinaSmack reader.

    I really get the feeling that those who support complex characters are all non-mainland people, because they all support these things that cost money but do nothing.

    Reply
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