Traditional or simplified? Debate on Chinese characters should be decided by pragmatics, not politics | SCMP | Paul Stapleton

LETTER TO SCMP:

LATER: PUBLISHED 15th JUNE

There's no need for the kerfuffle over use of simplified characters in Hong Kong. (Alex Lo and Paul Stapleton, recently). 

I learnt Chinese as an adult, first in Beijing in the mid-1970s. Being Beijing, I was taught simplified characters. In later full-time study in Hong Kong I learnt the traditional forms. I found this a pretty straightforward process. 

What is rarely mentioned by commenters is this: that simplified characters are most often derived from a cursive version of the traditional.  For example: 言 (yan) is written cursively as 讠. This character is also a common radical, so it is a part of many characters. In one stroke (as it were) you've learnt both forms of hundreds of characters. 

Learning a few basic rules for the connection between simplified and traditional characters allows anyone to be literate in both. In short order. 

By the way, if there's a sensible order in which to learn, it's simplified then traditional: walk before you run. (Though it's no big drama if it's the other way around). 

Take it from me: if I can learn both simplified and traditional forms of Chinese characters anyone can! 

Pf

You say "tomayto", I say "tomaahto"; you say "Beijing", I say "Peking"

I'm sometimes asked why I refer to Peking and not "Beijing".  After all, say my questioners, didn't China change their names some time ago?

Well no actually, they didn't change the name of Peking, or Canton, Hong Kong, Tibet or China for that matter.  But rather than get into the technicalities of the romanisation of Chinese place names, the replacement of Wade-Giles by Pinyin, I've taken to saying...

Sadly, the days of the "Anus Hospital" are behind us....

I first came across the wonder and fun of "Chinglish" when I got to China in the mid-seventies.  The Friendship Store was one of the few places you could get a decent selection of goods in those days, with wonderful products like "Thumbs Up Toilet Paper", "Great Leap Forward Floor Polish", and "Red Flag Sanitary Napkins".
One of my favourite headlines was in the monthly magazine "China Reconstructs"...