The world of Chinese characters
is an endless and fascinating one. I don't aim to be able to write Chinese, just recognise
the characters, to be able to read. Even after two and a half years, I often make small discoveries about the construction
and meaning of characters. However, the world of Chinese characters is just that - a world. A huge, different, weird world. You
can learn to read and write, but do not underestimate the investment of time it will require - ask a Chinese eight year old for
a rough idea of how long it takes.
The myths
They're fascinating, Chinese characters. Little pictures that you can just look at and understand. Like a picture of a
woman next to a child, which means 'good'. Charming. And rubbish.
It is true that the character for 'good' consists of the characters for 'woman' and 'child'. However, unless you have a vivid
and uncannily accurate imagination, you are as likely to decide that the 'woman' and 'child' bits are 'curtseying waif' and 'old
man run through with spear', which makes interpretation a bit trickier(but no less fun). A small number of Chinese characters
are logically constructed, and a look at the components can help you figure out the meaning, or the pronunciation. The character
for 'tree' doubled becomes 'forest', for example. However, they are in the minority.
How many characters are there? Pick a number. It just depends where you get bored and stop counting. Asking how many characters
there are is like asking how many members of the opposite sex there are in the world - it might be interesting to know, but
it's no use, because you are never going to see them all, much less be able to understand them.
The reality
Initially, don't worry too much about the characters. First things first, and that has to be your pronunciation and some basic vocabulary. When you do start to learn characters, learn the ones you see everyday - the ones that are in the name of your school, on road signs (I suspect local government has to chose road names from a centrally-approved pool, they're the same in every city) and menus. Don't dismiss characters as impossible or irrelevant - you can pick up enough to spot your favourite dish on a blackboard outside a restaurant and get home by figuring out from a road sign which way is east pretty quickly. You'll soon notice characters, or parts of characters, that turn up frequently. Find out what they are, and you'll start to see them even more often.
The writing
Learning to write Chinese is a labour of love. Obsessive love. Standing outside the bedroom window at 3am with a camera and a prayer love. Love that dare not speak its name because if it does it might forget which squiggle in the sequence of 17 it is trying to put together comes next love. If you are possessed of this kind of love, wonderful - a career in Chinese calligraphy, or stalking, could await. For the rest of us, do we really need to learn to write Chinese? Probably not. It's a fascinating thing to study, especially if you have an interest in art - there's a balance and harmony in a well-formed Chinese character. If you do the full-on brush and ink calligraphy, then each stroke needs to be practiced until you can write it fluidly and accurately, then you need to put the strokes together in the right order, maintaining that balance and harmony - which is an easy thing to recognise, but a difficult one to produce. For me, I have enough trouble with 26 letters.
The solution
Abolish them. I'm serious. It is unlikely to happen in my lifetime, as they are too much a part of Chinese culture, but
I seriously believe that Chinese characters should be replaced with pinyin. Here's why.
- You would overnight reduce the illiteracy rate by some huge number
- The classroom hours saved could be spent on less mindless tasks
- I would become a much more competent user of Chinese
This idea has been raised many times, not least by Chinese people (and schoolchildren). A popular complaint is 'but the culture would be lost'. Not true, the culture would still be there, for those willing to learn Chinese characters (and I'm sure plenty would). However, it would be a choice, not an obstacle to be overcome in order to become a literate member of society.