How do mainland Chinese people feel when seeing a sign with traditional characters?

[Don_Horhe]

@Jkhsu

What I've been saying all along is that the CCP is responsible solely for the act of making the simplifications official, not the simplification process itself. I don't like quoting myself, but:

However, the only thing that truly was the result of the CCP is the act of promulgation itself - they simply made official something that had been going on for centuries.

I took your statement to mean that the simplifications themselves were also the result of CCP's doings, not only the act of promulgation.

For the most part, minor differences aside, the differences in Set A and Set B are the result of the CCP.

Do you agree with this?

To put it in simpler terms, it is indeed the responsibility of the CCP that Set A, as distinct from Set B, was brought into official and legal existence, which is basically what we're both trying to say.

[jkhsu]

To put it in simpler terms, it is indeed the responsibility of the CCP that Set A, as distinct from Set B, was brought into official and legal existence, which is basically what we're both trying to say.

Right, I think we're both in agreement here.

My belief is that because Set A was brought into official and legal existence under the CCP and because the KMT disliked the CCP, therefore, they (the KMT) decided to not accept the simplifications under the CCP. I am guessing that the British in Hong Kong at the time decided not to accept the simplifications for similar reasons.

[anonymoose]

My belief is that because Set A was brought into official and legal existence under the CCP and because the KMT disliked the CCP, therefore, they (the KMT) decided to not accept the simplifications under the CCP.

You make it sound as though accepting simplified characters would go without saying if it were not for the KMT's dislike of the CCP, but I don't think this assumption is necessarily correct. After all, do Americans follow the British conventions on English? Does the Quebecan government officially adopt French conventions in French? Do Switzerland and Austria conform to the German government's rules of German?

As you've probably noticed, most people arguing here are not Chinese. It seems that non-Chinese are trying to create an issue out of a non-issue.

[skylee]

It seems that non-Chinese are trying to create an issue out of a non-issue.

Hear, hear.

[rezaf]

As you've probably noticed, most people arguing here are not Chinese. It seems that non-Chinese are trying to create an issue out of a non-issue.

It's not only us. The reason that "most people arguing here are not Chinese" is that there aren't many active native speakers here. If you go to forums for Chinese people you'll see many discussions like this:

http://bbs.news.163.com/bbs/shishi/741473.html

[jkhsu]

You make it sound as though accepting simplified characters would go without saying if it were not for the KMT's dislike of the CCP, but I don't think this assumption is necessarily correct.

I am just saying that I believe (again, just my opinion) the main reason (not the only reason) why the KMT did not accept the simplifications under the CCP is that they dislike the CCP and not because of the simplifications of the characters themselves. This then of course, led to the debate about the nature of the simplification.

After all, do Americans follow the British conventions on English? Does the Quebecan government officially adopt French conventions in French? Do Switzerland and Austria conform to the German government's rules of German?

No, no and no. That's because you're comparing different countries. If the KMT was just another political party in China along with the CCP (let's just assume this was the case), I highly doubt that because of the KMT, there would be this debate on simplification. Didn't a few others mention in this thread that the process of simplification has been going on for a while?

I also believe that if it weren't for Taiwan being under its own rule, Hong Kong under British rule and to a lesser extent Macau under Portuguese rule, traditional characters would not exist as they do today.

Also Singapore and Malaysia are two countries that have adoped simplified Chinese. I don't know the history or reason behind this; perhaps someone else can shed some light here. I don't think that the majority of ethnic Chinese in SIngapore and Malaysia consist of Chinese who grew up in mainland China after the simplification process. Therefore, at some point, there was a switch over.

As you've probably noticed, most people arguing here are not Chinese. It seems that non-Chinese are trying to create an issue out of a non-issue.

Which one is the non-issue?

[rezaf]

Also Singapore and Malaysia are two countries that have adoped simplified Chinese. I don't know the history or reason behind this; perhaps someone else can shed some light here. I don't think that the majority of ethnic Chinese in SIngapore and Malaysia consist of Chinese who grew up in mainland China after the simplification process. Therefore, at some point, there was a switch over.

Probably to make communication and business with mainland easier. I guess Mainland is much more important for them than Taiwan and Hong Kong. Secondly as far as I have seen Singaporean Chinese people are not that interested in Chinese in comparison to other 華人. Many even prefer to speak English so I guess they are not that interested in preserving Chinese culture and traditional characters stuff.

[jbradfor]

Sorry for bringing this back on topic, but another datapoint: in the Melbourne (Australia) airport they have a bunch of (official looking) signs welcoming people to Melbourne. Written in Chinese. In simplified Chinese.

[jkhsu]

@jbradfor: Were the signs only in simplified Chinese or did they also have traditional characters?

This is an interesting finding. I am guessing it's probably because of the higher % of mainland Chinese there. If you look at page 6 on this pdf, there is a breakdown of Chinese in 1996:

mainland China: 111,124

Hong Kong: 68,350

Taiwan: 19,536

http://www.multiculturalaustralia.edu.au/doc/ip_decade_of_taiwanese.pdf

The mainland Chinese population is probably much higher there now. I can not imagine traditional character signs changing into simplified in Los Angeles or San Francisco. What they might do is add simplified characters along with traditional ones (as skylee suggested).

[jbradfor]

IIRC, simplified only. [Note that this was after 30 hours of traveling, so no guarantees.]

Also, related to SF and LA, in the LA international terminal they had billboard ads for a casino that was in Chinese, simplified again. This was an ad, not the official sign. IIRC, that terminal didn't have have official Chinese signs, only English and Japanese.

[jkhsu]

The ad in LAX actually makes perfect sense since the majority of recent immigrants are from mainland China. They also seem to have the most money these days.

[yialanliu]

As a partial native, I would just like to say I think you guys are reading way too much into it. I honestly think 99% of the Chinese people do not care.

Do you guys care if you read color as colour? It's not a big deal is it and you won't get emotional right? Dustbin for trash can won't get you riled about and want to kick out the British circa 1700s?

Traditional and simplified is similar enough that most people who are fluent can probably recognize their traditional counterpart. Likewise, british english and american english are not that far apart either.

Lastly, many store names like to use traditional especially if it is the original name prior to the widespread adoption of simplified Chinese so once again not a big deal.

So in all honesty, I think people who do comment are the clear minority and most could care less.

[jkhsu]

As a partial native, I would just like to say I think you guys are reading way too much into it.

Can you explain what you mean by "partial native"?

Here are my thoughts summarized:

1. Most natives can read the other character set.

2. Most mainland Chinese natives "don't really care" if a sign is in simplified or traditional. However, most are more comfortable reading in simplified for obvious reasons.

3. Depending on the context, many Taiwainese "do care" if a sign is in traditional or simplified. See this link:

http://articles.lati...al/me-chinese18

Excerpt:

"In the heart of Taiwan, it's a crisis because the Taiwanese feel they are so small, there's nothing they can compete with China, not militarily, not with population," Lee said. "But if there's something they can . . . insist upon, it's culture and the language. And script is part of the culture."

Others worry that changing school curriculum is only the beginning and that the rest of the community would soon follow with store signs, restaurant menus and newspapers. In August, the Sing Tao Daily newspaper in the Bay Area changed its free weekly publication to simplified script...

[Albannach]

Anonymoose wrote: "Do Switzerland and Austria conform to the German government's rules of German?"

Maybe the German-speaking countries have shown how it should be done: a council of the culture ministers (which included both Germanies before reunification) decides on major reforms, which are then promulgated by the governments and, more importantly, by Duden (Deutsches Bibliographisches Institut). Nobody gets out of step or goes it alone on major changes in official usage (although there are, of course, localised variations). In my view, reforming "muß" to "muss" was fine, but retaining the "ß" elsewhere was unreasonable, as was retaining the capitalisation of substantives - but that is probably due to the conservatism when trying to get everyone to agree to change together.

Within the context of Chinese, non-Mandarin languages were ignored in the major orthographic reform, and it doesn't seem that stakeholders outwith the borders of the PR of China were considered - an informative contrast. (Hong Kong and Macao couldn't see any point in reforming the writing system to make it less suitable.)

Scottish Gaelic was subjected to orthographic reform in the 1970s, and soon after computers began the main means of producing writing - which meant that the reforms were pretty well unnecessary. No Canadians, who also had and have a stake in this language, were invited to contribute their views, and they mostly ignore the reforms. The upshot has been uncertainty about spelling, which contributes to undermining confidence. Impose "solutions" like this, and the result will be unnecessary divisions - which is exactly what written Chinese displays. (For a minority language like Gaelic, the consequences are, of course, much more serious.)

[renshanrenhai]

The simplified Chinese characters are adopted since the foundation of the PRC, so that illiteracy can be more easily eliminated.

A professor once advocated the promotion of traditional characters but this policy didn't seem to be feasible.

Traditional characters are never taught in schools in mainland (at least in shanghai), and most people from mainland are not as familiar with them as Hong Kong people or Taiwanese. Though we can recognize some of them, it's almost impossible to write them down.

The signs in those transportation sites, such as airport, should not set up to show off the cultural stuffs, instead , in my view, it has to be as simple as possible to offer helpful and clear info.

But I think there can be an exception for those historical sites where the traditional characters were initially there to tell its history.

[shinewind]

It depends on whether you are politics sensitive. I would say I am OK even happy with traditional ones. Don't forget most ancient works are written in traditional characters and personally i think they are better structured especially when you are writing a piece of calligraphy.

[ParkeNYU]

Tongyong Pinyin amounted to little more than a petty jab at Zhou Youguang, and it was dead and buried before he was.