Traditional or simplified, don’t let the Chinese language become political
Students involved in ‘war of words’ over which characters should be used can learn from lessons of history
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?
Simplified or traditional, here in these campuses both were annotated with different ideological and political meanings by students from both sides, which was worrying. A further look into the history of the evolution of Chinese characters showed that when debates between the two schools on this linguistic issue got political, the consequence could be very undesirable.
Simplification of Chinese characters was introduced in the early 1930s by the then Nationalist government of the Kuomintang, but was soon halted because many advocating simplified Chinese were the “leftists” from the culture circle who at the time were more supportive and sympathetic to the Communists. This led to the disappearance of simplified Chinese in the Kuomintang-ruled areas while it became more popular in rural areas controlled by the Communist Party who used easier-to-learn characters to enlighten its supporters.
It therefore came as no surprise that, after the Communist Party established its power, a complete new set of “simplified” Chinese characters was officially released in 1956 and subsequently became the official words used on the mainland.
Across the Taiwan strait, the Kuomintang government , which had fled to the island, continued to use “traditional” Chinese.
During the earlier years when both sides were literally at war, the use of “simplified” Chinese in Taiwan, or the use of “traditional” Chinese on the mainland could have serious political consequences. How sad that language should have been politicised to such an extreme.
Fortunately, that is no longer the case now although, officially, mainland China and Taiwan still use different Chinese characters.
Hong Kong, with its former special status as a British colony and today under the concept of “one country, two systems”, has tolerated both styles.
Although traditional Chinese has always been used officially and is more widely used throughout Hong Kong, no one has to worry about running into trouble by preferring either one.
Many like to talk about being mesmerised by the beauty of Chinese characters, but the fact that there exist two types of words means the debate on which one is more “Chinese” will not end easily.
However, history tells us it does no good turning it into a political issue, so better “give to Caesar what is Caesar’s, and to God what is God’s” by keeping it as a purely language issue.
