Changing times, changing Post

The South China Morning Post today introduces the use of Chinese characters as an aid to the majority of our readers who are Chinese.

The characters will appear where they are likely to be of most use - for the names of people from the mainland.

These names are rendered in the Western alphabet using the pinyin system of transliteration, which has not been officially adopted in Hong Kong and is unfamiliar to many Hong Kong Chinese people.

The addition of the characters for mainland names provides a more precise form of identification.

The move is another step aimed at making the newspaper more accessible and useful to readers.