The comments divided over my letter.
Re the one saying that characters are pictograms: sure. I do know that. And learning simplified doesn't do away with learning that.
I also learnt calligraphy and doing so one learns and appreciates the history of characters and also learns cursive.
One asks how can simplified “hou" 后 be cursive of the non-simplified 後. Well, I didn't say all simplified characters were based on cursive just that most were.
Also and by the way I do understand that there's a "cultural" aspect to the issue, more properly a "political" one in that some Hongkongers think it's communist hegemony to have simplified characters.