Yao Ying

Character not in need of cosmetic change

By Yao Ying (China Daily)
Updated: 2009-08-27 07:50

It would be unfair to say that the Ministry of Education didn't conduct thorough research before issuing a list of 8,300 standardized Chinese characters on Aug 12 to solicit public opinion before regulating the way we write.

Thousands of scholars from home and abroad spent eight good years researching and deliberating on the list, and revising it as many as 90 times. But surprisingly, the public doesn't seem interested in their effort, and the ministry must be wondering why.

Polls show that people, who have been given till the end of this month to express their opinion, are especially unhappy with the changes to 44 characters. Officials and scholars are trying to put the public at ease by saying that the changes will be restricted to 44 characters alone and won't affect the lives of ordinary people. However, an online survey by Sina.com shows 91 percent of the more than 520,000 respondents (till yesterday) are against the revision, with only 4.2 percent in favor.

Changes may be made to only 44 characters, but many of them - such as cha (tea), chun (lip), sha (kill) and those for some stringed instruments - are commonly used. The public fears confusion because identifying the new characters can become tricky. Perhaps, the worst sufferers would be primary and middle school students.

From the first day, primary school students are taught to write standard Chinese characters, stoke by stoke, following the style standardized in 1965. Teachers take great pains to correct any mistake in the strokes because the Chinese believe this will lay a good educational foundation for children.

If the State Council approves the ministry's proposal, millions of primary school students and their teachers may have to change the way they have been writing the 44 characters. Books, dictionaries, signboards and even ID cards will have to be replaced.

People wonder if officials who initiated the project thought about the huge amount of public resources needed to standardize the change in the world's most populous country. Any move of such magnitude should be taken only if it is necessary and after weighing all the pros and cons.

Some ministry officials and experts have said the changes are essential to conform to the Song typeface, which is neater and better structured. Aesthetics is one thing, and subjecting 1.3 billion people to change the characters they have known for so many years is another.

The unified way of writing Chinese is believed to be a key factor holding people together for more than 2,000 years in this vast land of hundreds of dialects, and the lack of unified characters would have made it utterly difficult for us to communicate with each other.

It's true written Chinese characters went through a major revision after the founding of New China in 1949 when simplified characters replaced the traditional, complicated ones. The purpose was to make identification and writing of characters easier for the public, many of them illiterate. The simplified form has been widely used on the mainland by the Chinese as well as foreigners.

That so many netizens are against the changes speaks volumes about its unpopularity. The ministry should respect public demand and make a wise decision. And, it can divert the resources to other projects to ensure every child gets to attend school. Or, it can use it to cleanse our colleges and academic circles of corruption and plagiarism. Aren't these causes more worthwhile than changing language characters?

E-mail: yaoying@chinadaily.com.cn

(China Daily 08/27/2009 page8)