City Beat | Traditional or simplified, don’t let the Chinese language become political

A tit-for-tat style of “war of words” is widely used to describe a prolonged debate between two parties with confronting political standpoints. The latest “war of words” in town did not take erupt inside the usually noisy Legco chamber, but in university campuses, between local and mainland students.

Amid growing Hong Kong-mainland tension, it is perhaps not surprising to see posters in campuses on sensitive topics. A recent one by a mainland student questioning his Hong Kong counterparts’ standard of traditional Chinese has gone viral, and could serve as food for thought for people.

The student, said to be from Guizhou (貴州), one of the poorest provinces on the mainland, is now studying in Polytechnic University. He put up a Chinese brush-writing poster on the campus “democracy wall” weeks ago. What made it special was, not only that it was in classical Chinese calligraphy style, but the characters were all in traditional rather than simplified Chinese.

“I started to practise different styles of Chinese calligraphy when I was six ... your [local students’] level of traditional Chinese is far from my mine”! the poster read.

It all started when earlier this month, a poster written in English declaring “Hong Kong is not China” appeared on the wall. Some mainland students immediately satirised back in Chinese: “Indeed, Hong Kong is not China. Hong Kong is part of China.”

The war of words escalated when some local students ridiculed the simplified Chinese characters in these posters as “incomplete disabled Chinese” used by “disabled people”.

There have long been debates at home and abroad on which type of Chinese can better represent the beauty and essence of the culture – the traditional Chinese widely used by Hongkongers, Taiwanese and many overseas Chinese, or the simplified Chinese officially used in the mainland, Singapore and various other places?