Irrelevant. All civilizations have a history dating back thousands of years, one more or less thousand changes nothing.

“Many traditional, historic, cultural heritages ruined and destroyed forever since (no thanks to them!).”

Yes like footbinding. How dare chinese civilization FINALLY begin to move forward and break out of this Dark Age. How dare women have rights. How dare people start living a MODERN life.

“However, we, as a Chinese race, we are wrong to accept these traditional characters fading out or disappeared simply because of a hasty and wrong decision made by one party or one regime at a bad time. ”

That’s called evolution. Successful civilizations change and evolve over time, weak ones stagnate. For example, the English language has changed considerably overtime. This is an example of old english:

“Hwæt! wÄ“ Gār-Dena in geār-dagum,”

That’s from Beowulf. The wikipedia page has more info about that if anyone is interested http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Old_english

“one of the greatest writing systems in the world if not the greatest. ”

I dont believe this, you call other people narrow minded for wanting to move on when you make such an ethnocentric remark as this.

“The sad fact is judging by some the comments made by the fellow readers, some use rather fowl languages, I have a feeling that majority of people do not even know what the traditional characters are about, rather ignorant and narrow-minded.”

We all know what it is about, it’s a system of communication just like any other written script.

“The traditional characters are just so much more civilized and aesthetic.”

If being civilized is your concern, why not push people to act more civilized? Being able to write pretty is meaningless when people allow their children to urinate in the streets, when people throw their garbage everywhere, when people spit and smoke everywhere. All you want to do is hold China back, instead of pushing it to develop more and face the future.

“There are many softwares in the market that can translate both in an instant.”

We don’t live in a paperless society, people still need to write using pen and paper sometimes. To overly complicate to fulfill your own desires is selfish.

“but I do think Chinese as a race we should revert and preserve this writing glory and supremacy in order to present ourselves to the world it is something worth doing, it just takes courage and time.”

Supremacy, eh? Yet another narrow minded ethnocentric remark. If you’re so interested in preserving your “supremacy” then why use all of this foreign invented technology? Why not use chinese invented technology only? Come on, how about it?

“The literacy rate in HK is 94.6%, China 90.9%”

The literacy rate in the US is 99%.

Let’s not forget, China was in a Dark Age for most of the Ming dynasty which ran all the way until recently. During that time there was little in the way of new written works, no new ideas, philosophies, inventions (and they even forgot some of their own inventions), because they believed they were perfect and “superior”, even though many people were dying of cyclical famine; a problem that was conquered by another western invention the late Qing wanted no part of – - – fertilizer. China today is getting better, thanks to fresh ideas and technology coming from the west, but in many respects it is still desperately poor and backward. What caused it to fall behind was a combination of racism, complacency, and narrow mindedness. Perhaps we should thank Y Y Chen for showing us that this complacency and narrow mindedness is still alive and well today, ensuring the continuation of the Chinese Dark Age.

To change back to traditional characters is not about an inconvenience to 1.3 billion people, nor it about suiting the Taiwanese and Hong Kong Chinese.

In fact it is about all the Chinese people, all 1.3 billion, or 1300 millions of us; we, as a proud and cultural human race, finally come to respect and recognize these beautiful writing characters again. We have a 5000 years of culture, the traditional Chinese characters took this long to develop and evolve. Some may say tough because in these 60 years since 1949 it is part of the revolution and evolution, too. However, we, as a Chinese race, we are wrong to accept these traditional characters fading out or disappeared simply because of a hasty and wrong decision made by one party or one regime at a bad time. It brought a loss to a race and culture.

Traditional Chinese writing characters are basically logographic writing system, one of the greatest writing systems in the world if not the greatest. By 1400 BC the script included some 2,500 to 3,000 characters, most of which can be read to this day.

The sad fact is judging by some the comments made by the fellow readers, some use rather fowl languages, I have a feeling that majority of people do not even know what the traditional characters are about, rather ignorant and narrow-minded.

The traditional characters are just so much more civilized and aesthetic. It is estimated to be about 2000 characters been simplified, it is really not that many and not that difficult. There are many softwares in the market that can translate both in an instant.

髮/发; 臺/台; 邊/边; 燦/灿; 門/门; 聲/声; 賓/宾; 豐/丰

The above short list may put off some of you, but I do think Chinese as a race we should revert and preserve this writing glory and supremacy in order to present ourselves to the world it is something worth doing, it just takes courage and time.

Thank you for your time reading and sharing my thoughts.