Simplified Chinese characters account for around 5% of the broadly accepted total number (roughly 50,000) of Chinese characters, but more like a third of the most commonly used 5,000 or so. Most readers can infer the meaning of a simplified character from context. It is also easy, using a Chinese word processing app, to convert text between traditional and simplified characters at the touch of a button; each simplified character has just one traditional counterpart.
The nearest equivalent in English would be attempts to strip spelling down to the basics. In both cases, the reformed method of writing is probably easier to learn. But remove etymology from words. And to many, it just looks ugly. This is the sort of change that has to be imposed.
A Hong Kong school says it will accept simplified Chinese in examinations. Local parents are unhappy, and local officials also voice their disagreement. And then, a (perhaps predictable) twist: Beijing’s local representatives and media contradict them, and hint that simplified will be the way to go in the future. They seem especially upset because traditional characters remind them of Taiwan…
The [Ta Kung Pao] article ends with a call for the city to “face reality and adjust its mindset” to deepen the city’s integration with the rest of China. While this piece is not a formal order from Beijing, it still suggests that China may be issuing orders for Hong Kong to follow.
Watch local officials change their tune on simplified characters.
Another feature of Mainland life is the use of young women as official or corporate decoration. Airlines and government bodies recruit female ancillary staff for their nubile looks and demeanour. They must be the same height and have the same general appearance. They are trained to walk a certain way, smile a certain way and serve food and drinks with choreographed precision. There are ornamental male assistants as well, but the most famous example is the tea ladies at the NPC (the synchronized figures in crimson).
And now, the practice comes to Hong Kong…
The SCMP reports…
For months, Kristin Ngai has been practising smiling while biting onto a chopstick at home, ensuring she shows six to eight teeth – the standard required to be one of the 75 volunteer prize presentation assistants from Hong Kong for the National Games this month.
In addition to smiling, the 30-year-old bank clerk said they were also trained for three days to stand, sit and walk in specific ways, as they would be under the spotlight, helping with the presentation of medals as well as guiding athletes onto the stage.
…She also said that, ahead of the Games, volunteers were told to not gain weight so they could fit into the pink gowns that had been tailor-made for them and they should not wear nail polish or have visible tattoos.
“There is also an interesting request,” Ngai said. “We shouldn’t be too tanned, to achieve a more ‘oriental beauty’ complexion. The hair should also be kept quite dark.”
Through two rounds of interviewing, Ngai said she had to introduce herself in Mandarin and was tested on how she would carry trays with bottled water while she walked.
Presumably no South Asians need apply.
Ah yes, racism with Chinese characteristics
maybe the two mouthpieces should start to face the reality first and print their rubbish with the stunted characters, but somehow i doubt this will increase their credibility
For work reasons i correspond daily with mainland personnel, and always use the proper, traditional characters for all communications. No one of them have even a slight objection and in fact quite a few reply in kind, so is very likely this is hogwash born out from the local liaison office
It’s interesting that people oppose spelling reform even when it obviously makes things easier. But I cannot say it’s surprising because I would probably oppose it myself in English. And yet – I admit American English is better having dropped the ‘u’ in ‘colour’, ‘honour’, and so on.
In 1996 there was an attempt to reform German spelling, which was strongly resisted. It makes one admire (in a way) the achievement of Ataturk, who switched written Turkish from the Arabic script to the Latin alphabet. The Turkish language is not related to either of those languages so the change was justifiable, but it was, in the words of our blogger, “the kind of change that has to be imposed”.
“For work reasons i correspond daily with mainland personnel, and always use the proper, traditional characters for all communications. No one of them have even a slight objection and in fact quite a few reply in kind, so is very likely this is hogwash born out from the local liaison office”
I am seconding @FeiLo is this is my experience as well. It’s really all about politics.
It is interesting that mainland promotes simplified characters while banging on about the 5000 years of glorious unified history
However Hemmers a quick flip through my Xiandai Hanyu cidian shows quite a numerous amount of simplified characters will map to more than one traditional equivalent (another part of the writing reform besides simplification of radicals to reduce stroke count being cutting down on variants of the same character when there were two ways of writing it) so you aren’t quite totally correct there
@Knownot: That’s the thing, in no way, shape or form does “simplified” make anything easier or simpler, despite the nomer. In fact it makes characters on the whole more confusing by changing or compounding essential elements.
As “re-connecting” with one’s culture is cyclical and inevitable when societies reach certain levels of education and/or wealth, the re-discovery and, dare I say, trendiness of Fanti Chinese amongst the younger generation is inevitable.
That one of the stalwarts and in many ways beacon of traditional written Chinese is the great island nation of Taiwan, that must be why the CCP “elite” are pushing for its quick extinction. Talk about cutting one’s nose off to spite the face.
Can any of the cunninglinguists here shed light on why the Japanese use a bizarre hybrid of traditional AND simplified characters in their current language??
I address all mainland persons whether hotel staff, check-in agents, taxi drivers, police traffic wardens etc with the simplified greeting — “Ni Hao Tongzi”. It seems to do the trick.
@Mjrelje
In modern colloquial usage, and depending on your personal preferences, greeting with “tongzi” may secure you a longer encounter with one the said (male) service staff.
Reader.
Top tip.
@Chinese Netizen tl;dr – political reasons
Japan did a round of writing system simplification in 1946 that was not closely connected to the CCP 1950s one but was connected to the earlier ROC simplification efforts, so they got some of the simplification changes but not all, you can look up ‘shinjitai’ ‘kyujitai’ ‘jōyō kanji’ etc.