Return To Complex Characters Proposal, Netizen Reactions

Right now, the NPC (National People’s Congress) and CPPCC (Chinese People’s Political Consultative Conference) are happening in China. One of the proposals that were made by committee members in these organizations was to restore, resume, resurrect, or return to traditional/complex Chinese characters.

Here are some of the reactions by Chinese netizens:

From Tianya:

Must Not Restart Complex Characters, Otherwise Everyone Will Suffer

This person is against the proposal and makes 5 points:

The cost of changing textbooks. The students who go to school must bear these costs because the country will not pay for them. If we say the textbooks are not expensive, only a few dozen kuai, what about the impoverished areas who already cannot afford the these few dozen kuai textbooks? What about all the university students who graduate this year who do not know how to read or write complex characters, what will they do? Go back to school and relearn everything? Who will pay for it?
Will bad bad for doing business also, because signs and advertisements will all need to be changed. How much money must be spent to
The cost for the government for things like government seals, etc., all need to be changed. Each only costs a few dozen kuai but has everyone thought of how many government departments are in all of China? These costs are all paid by the ordinary common people!
This language problem will affect every aspect of the people’s lives and cost an enormous amount of resources for the people. Who will pay for everything in the end? The ordinary common people.
The ressurection of complex characters looks like a simple thing, but it will affect over a bilion people. If the CPPCC has so much desire to do something, they should spend their energy on “reforming education, medical care, housing, employment, etc.”

Comments:

冷月流星:

His mother’s dog fart! [Bullshit!]
Even if the legislature uses complex/traditional characters, how many people will truly go use it?
Will computers need to invent a new complex character input method?
Do not mention this again, those who have this kind of thought are all SB.

顺民一个:

I am speechless, changing simplified to complex, I can foresee this being something more difficult than medical reform. Even if the entire country’s teachers get training in batches is already almost impossible to accomplish. It is basically an unrealistic/impractical thing.

金刚玉米:

Chinese culture needs complex characters as a carrier to transmit it on [to future generations].

jhwind2008:

It has already been 60 years since the founding of the country [New China].
Does China have more culture now? — No!
Does resurrecting complex characters mean getting culture? — No!
Is China really 5000 years of civilization/culture? –No! Cockroach civilization/culture! Only cockroaches can endure and survive so comfortably in this kind of situation!!!!
What is wrong with having things a little easier/simpler??!!!

飞葡萄:

There are a lot of things we can no longer go back to!
It is impossible for us to use complex characters again.
Or are you telling us to start all over and learn complex characters?

苦海潜水难免冒泡:

This group eats shit and shits food. How many important things in society have not been handled, such as the economic crisis, rising unemployment rate, university student employment, migrant worker pay, unequal distribution, corruption,…these they do not want to fix, and they spend all day thinking one moment of changing to complex characters, another moment of changing to simplified characters, another moment changing to Japanese characters, fuck, if you guys think your eggs/balls hurt, go home by yourself and take care of it, making some silly proposals, truly so stupid!

顺民一个:

I really get the feeling that those who support complex characters are all non-mainland people, because they all support these things that cost money but do nothing. Are you all just trying to get the mainland ordinary common people to spend more money and suffer more, so then China will collapse like the previous Soviet Union, or even become a new colony before you will be happy?

namp:

Poor elementary school students.
I remember back in my time the elementary school student punishment regulations was copying/writing something 100 times and I spent an entire night copying. I bet if it would have taken twice as long if it were complex characters.

崔特:

Resurrecting complex characters is like asking women to restart binding their feet.

Amacsu:

This issue has the same reasons as whether or not to learn English…
It is enough to have some genius be cultivated/trained to a professional level. Let them research, inherit, and carry on. Is it worthwhile to have all the people do it?
What I am interested in, I am willing to learn, so whether you resurrect it or not has nothing to do with me.
What I am not interested in, I will not want to learn, so if you force me to learn, will I learn it well?
I find these stupid cunt representatives the most annoying, are they bored nervous or are they afraid of losing face if they do not propose something? Looking at things from one side, having learned decades of Mao Thought, their experience not even the level of a middle school graduate…whose tragedy is this…[their’s or our country’s?]?

妍子Chceni:

Talking about cross-straits relations, all bullshit. Why should 1.3 billion people change for Hong Kong and Taiwan, huh?~

何突突:

I support complex characters, because I believe every ethnicity’s history cannot be cut off so wantonly, so roughly, without reason, and artificially. Our ethnicity cannot, in the span of a few years, become unable to recognize our own forefather’s language, unable to understand the culture of the land we exist on. Strongly support restarting/resurrecting complex characters! [This comment was written in complex characters]

From Tianya:

Abolish Simplified Characters And Resume Complex Characters, Do Our Billions Of Countrymen Agree?!

This post-topic was also against the complex characters proposal. It was very long so here are some of the more interesting things:

Argues that Mao Zedong and the Communist Party originally simplified characters to improve illiteracy rate and allow the Chinese people to spend more time learning and developing other fields to advance China.
Simplified characters also developed to to “lighten the burden” for foreigners so they can learn Chinese faster, better, and promote international cultural exchange.
The only people who support the abolition of simplified Chinese characters are 1. people who like to impose their will on other people and show off. 2. “Certain groups at home or abroad” who want to split/divide China and destroy the glory and accomplishments of Communist China’s first 30 years.
Gives examples of Anglo-American simplification: colour > color, favour > favor, odour > odor, hippopotamus > hippo, rhinoceros > rhino，Christmas > Xmas, television > TV, federal government > fed gov, Republican Party > GOP, George Walker Bush > G. W. Bush, How are you?/How are you doing? > How ya? How ya doin?，I agree/I accept/No problem/etc. > OK.
Says Anglo-American countries are hypocrites who also simplify their language so “communications will be easier, learning will be easier, the society can develop faster, and the people can become more creative” but do not want the Chinese to enjoy the same.

Comments:

fushiqing:

Every year there are some stupid cunt committee members who suggest a few pointless proposals, simply wasting public resources and playing to the gallery. How are these stupid cunts qualified to represent us?

再不行我要生气了:

Too lazy to read the entire essay, but just reading the title, I am against it. When I write simplified characters, I still dislike how many strokes there are, I am lazy.

夏天的梅子:

There is nothing bad about restarting complex characters!
No one said it has to be like Putonghua [Mandarin] and spread so that everyone knows! Only to have the people know it a little, and anyway this is also Chinese culture!

jpttu:

Some things may be bothersome but worth it. For example, any “tea culture”. Is it not just making a cup of tea, why make it so complicated?? I support having us reacquaint ourselves with our complex characters, but do not advocate replacing simplified characters!

yuh1985:

What I do not understand is, why should 1.3 billion people always have to listen to some stupid cunt proposals to please 20-30 million people?…Is that not a little lacking in self-respect/self-identity?

xlgigi:

Looks like I will have to relearn language, so sad~~~

虫虫族:

The more this old committee member lives, the more backwards he goes…he should propose that we start to use bone inscriptions…bone inscriptions are the real traditional written language of the Chinese ethnicity…but does he know them? …If China were all like this old pedant…that would truly be China’s tragedy…

中华汉魂:

Support, if we do not say something, the government might really go back to complex characters. Those above who support complex characters, I simply do not believe you guys can really write all the complex characters.

温江风子: