CHINESE CHARACTERS -- THE GREATEST TREASURE OF MANKIND
Mao Tse Tong once reminisce that the greatest pleasure in life was
reading a kungfu novel using a flashlight under the blanket in the
schools dormintory. Well, any Chinese kids who've ever read a
kungfu novel can verify how engrossing it can be. But few
probably
appreciate the ability of the characters of the Chinese language in
bringing out the essence of the primordial character of the Chinese
people.
For five thousand years, these characters have become the repository of
the human experience. Each often represents the emotion and ideal
of a complete moral episode. Men of integrity debate their very
priorities in guiding people's conducts. In short, a Chinese
spend a life time trying to live up to the characters that he holds
highest.
Recent archiological digs have made China unique in term of the
treasures of the past in that there are more antiques intentionally
left untouched underground than those above. The government has
also been making nationalistic guestures to recover symbolic antiques
robbed from China by the Western imperialists. But internally, in
an overzealous effort to do technology catchup to the West, China
compromise the exquisiteness of her language through simplification,
losing much of the cultural features. This is a self-contraditory
approach.
There is no greater treasure than the characters.
Losing that, China would not only lose the past but also her
future.
Already the simplification of the characters has been
carried over to the behaviors of a large section of the Chinese
youths. A
reversal message should be send out as soon as possible. Our very learned leader Wen
Jiaboa should be the person
to do it.