Vicious Rants of an Angry Yellow Man

I read an article in LA Times recently about a fight in the Chinese community in Southern California over the use of traditional vs simplied scripts in Chinese language schools and in public schools in the area that offer Chinese courses. Traditional script is how Chinese have been written over thousands of years. It is distinguished by a series of complex strokes that makes for beautiful calligraphy. It is still the official writing in Taiwan and Hong Kong. The simplified version was introduced by the communists in China about 50 years ago to make it easier for the rural mass to become literate quicker. It is supposed to be easier for a child to learn than the complex traditional version.

In the past the Chinese America community was dominated by immigrants from Hong Kong and southern China. Then the Taiwanese came. Since all of these groups use the traditional version there was no controversy. Now there is a big influx of mainlanders who grew up using the simplified version. Obviously they want their children to learn the simplified version. So now school officials are caught in the middle. It is really too bad because it tears the Chinese American community apart over something as beautiful as Chinese writing.

My own feeling is that I want the traditional writings to survive. I am biased because I learned the traditional version. I also feel that the tradition is more beautiful. It has more, pardon the pun, character. I doubt that the simplified version is that much easier to learn. If you want easy, use alphabet! But I am also realistic, with the overwhelming population of China and its increasing influence in the world of commerce, the simplified version will eventually prevail. Just like Cantonese will give away to Mandarin in Chinatowns here and eventually even in Hong Kong, traditional scripts will lose out. It is too bad but it is reality.