古琴 (Guqin) or 吉他 (Guitar) - The Chinese Language, Evolving?

About a month ago the New York Times discussed the simplification of the Chinese language and invited experts to debate the shift from traditional to simplifed characters on the mainland and the preservation of traditional characters elsewhere. Professor Eileen Chow of Harvard University acknowledges that while the simplification of the Chinese language has led to increased literacy and ease of communication, to be ignorant of traditional characters is "to close oneself off to Chinese tradition and arts before the 1950s." Professor Eugene Wang, again of Harvard University, argues that simplified characters are justified by the amount of information that needs to be absorbed everyday. After all, a week's worth of information in the NY Times today contains more information than a person would come across in lifetime during the 18th century. "The first step is efficiency, the second is for cultural refinement," Professor Wang says, “That is why every society has the division of labor between bankers and poets." A columnist for the World Journal Weekly mentions that classical philosophers "exploited the full range and expression of traditional Chinese characters" and concludes that simplified characters is merely the solution for politics, not culture.

Over a year ago, three-time Light Fellow and friend Angel Ayala wrote an opinion column for the Yale Daily News in response to an email that instructed all Chinese lectors and professors to place more emphasis on traditional characters. This column basically summarizes everything that the experts said above, but is written from a student's perspective.

As novices to the world of Chinese, we often cannot tell the difference among traditional and simplified characters in the first place, not to mention the different computer fonts that can vary stroke placement, number and order. To confirm Angel's point on newspapers in the States, I have not found one publication that is printed with simplified characters. However, I also noticed that the specialized diction and tone used in American Chinese newspapers are different from mainland newspapers, from the use of certain chengyu to the structure of the sentences themselves.

History versus Professor Chow's linguistic "utopia," elitism versus populism, traditional versus simplified characters - I find the defenses of each side of each debate strong and, frankly, I do not intend to attack any of them. Western readers new to the entire debate may associate the argument that art and culture are lost with the decline of traditional characters to George Orwell's essay on Newspeak - "It was intended that when Newspeak had been adopted once and for all and Oldspeak forgotten, a heretical thought should be literally unthinkable, at least so far as thought is dependent on words" - but have changed the words Newspeak and Oldspeak to simplified and traditional characters and the word "heretical" to an adjective that at once embodies "cultural, historical, artistic." I do not find the debate has distinct and dire as Orwell has written, but I do agree that the complete death of traditional characters will trigger the slow deletion of ancient Chinese history and culture. Fortunately, I believe that will never happen so long as this Earth has historians and artistic souls who look back in time and dare to reflect on past life. However, as we cannot all be fulltime professional historians, for the sake of communication and development, I suppose language does have to change its shape and form.

For the simplified character readers who suddenly find an interest for Confucian and Daoist philosophy/history but have no interest in studying traditional characters, I suppose Yu Dan's lectures will do, albeit her shallow and skewed interpretation of the texts.

For the reader who really doesn't understand the cultural and history gap between traditional and simplified characters, I decided to compare the character 藝 (艺), or yi, in this entry. In the picture to the left, the simplified yi is to the left. This character means "skill" today. In modern Chinese, 藝術 (艺术) means art. However, originally this character meant "to grow." (艺，种也。 ——《说文》)

The traditional character is a pictograph of a plant growing. On the left side, a plant (圥) in soil (土) is cared for by a hand (丸,凡). To this, grass was added (艹) and cloud was added to water the crop (云). Later this character was used by Confucius to mean "strive for, seek" (求也藝。——《論語·雍也》). The development of this character from "grow" to "strive" suggests a historical shift from agriculture to specialized craftsmanship.

The simplified form is just grass (艹) over the 乙 (yi) phonetic.

share on: facebook

我站在门槛外

我站在门槛外。

地上覆盖着我曾写过的笔记和作文。我蹲下捡起一张布满折痕仿佛从笔记本中撕下的纸。纸上写着我第一次跟出租车司机一块聊天时的对话和我的感想。老师在作文上留的红叉使我以前所犯过的语法和用词错误一目了然。我应该认真复习这篇草稿，可是回想起刚开始学习汉语时的天真无邪，我不由得笑起来。噫…逝者如斯。俯视，一些纸张的页边记着我所闻所见的好词好句，如“蔷薇红”和“有一日未死之身，则有一日未闻之道。”然而，这些笔记好像是在匆忙中写的，因为其字迹太潦草了。

我的记性很差，所以我早就决定了把回忆和想象寄托于自纸墨字。我能写什么就写什么，在墨水用光时，我便会再灌继续写字。我偶尔会重读我的所写来享受想象之果并使往事浮于眼前，然而我总觉得我写的一切都如同因缺几块而未完成的拼图游戏。

我站在门槛外。

透过门，能看到一片沙滩。这不是一般的海边浴场。沙地是一片无垠的白黄——它没有菅茅草，也没有干枯的海草。虽然见不到海鸥，它的鸣叫却仍传到耳朵里。一股凉爽和畅的风使我的精神振奋。从这儿，我能看到气势雄伟的大海，听到大海的沙哑的低语，闻到大海的那刺鼻的咸味。谁在搅动海面并形成波涛？波涛一潮潮地向沙地滚滚打来，缓缓冲激。
在沙地和大海之间那固态和液态紧紧相连的汇合处，被打湿的沙子大喊：“不服!” 它们勇敢地面对大海，以自身连成一带深褐色的前线。
大海哗啦作响，溅起泡沫，如鼓声阵阵。
此战奚始？物类之起，必有所始——唯有挂在遥远天空的太阳知道其始，而且只有这个旁观者才能猜测其终。莫非太阳是使大海与沙子永远不停地交锋的魁首？莫非大海和沙子只能任当傀儡，给太阳消遣？

在沙滩上游目骋怀，凝视脚下八万四千的沙子，遥望起伏不定的大海。我要描绘周围的景色，可是口袋里没有笔。我用手指在沙地上写字，一个“中”字没写完而大风便已刮过，使沙子填满“口”，但一竖的痕迹还能看得清楚。
这是否太伟大了？以往的作家警告过我不要以毛笔挑战大自然，但我已走上了写作之路，现在不能望洋兴叹，视沙感燥。尽管在一千句只有一句能体现沙滩之美，如果我能间接地同他们相遇而且相融了，即使只有一次已足够，我就心满意足了。为此而夙夜匪懈是值得的。

投干沙一把于海而投者见击者，盖沙顺风而散，逆行而击也。湿沙者，为涛所透之沙也。投湿沙一把于海矣，假于吾力而加疾，因之而填于海也。是故干湿二沙，固而同质，投而异向，涛之透使然也。

我站在门槛外。

六月三日。



金健佑

share on: facebook

Bangu (板鼓) - End of Fellowship Thoughts and Transitions

(Writer's Note: The following blog is the final part in a series of entries that will summarize my life as a student at the Inter-University Program at Tsinghua University (IUP).)

After submitting my final essays to my tutorial teachers, I felt dizzy. Shouldn't one feel free after finishing school? Shouldn't one feel at ease? Instead, I felt even more confused and lost than when I had begun studying Chinese.
Maybe my mind is trying to reflect on everything that has happened since my first day at IUP. Maybe my mind is trying to prepare to leave an environment to which it had accustomed, to leave dear teachers and friends. I gained thousands of words and lost seven pounds (in all the wrong places), made friends throughout China and lost a few memories.

In this series, I've talked of bikes, my apartment and my thoughts on education at IUP. For future Light Fellows, if you wish to save time, just read the following few grains of advice:
1. Live off campus.
2. Ride a bike.
3. Read out loud.

Besides this, I can offer no constructive advice. I can offer one deconstructive piece of advice however -

Be independent.

We are all part of the social media generation - we live in a world where are friends and family are a few clicks away. Networking has a good reputation. I'm not saying any of this is bad - friends will miss you and mothers will worry if you don't reply back to their emails and wall posts. Networking also fails if you don't respond. I'm just saying isolate yourself from the western world. There are plenty of temptations in Wudaokou to allow you to revert to your comforts - English this, English that - but if you

came to China with the intention of mastering Chinese, a year's period of seclusion will not impede your English speaking ability. Complete cultural immersion happens only when you delete AIM and download QQ, when you refuse to speak English or mother tongue and when you dare to travel independently. Find Chinese friends on your own by attending random events, meeting random people and following them to other random events. Ignore the classmates that want to complain to you in English, or passively listen to them. Travel independently as often as possible or with no more than three people. After a year of struggling to abide by this one rule, my Chinese has improved faster, my appreciation of Chinese culture and politics has deepened and my perspective of my own cultural identity has changed greatly.

Though my studies in China have concluded as a Richard U. Light Fellow, I will continue to learn and work in China. With the support of the Yale Global Health Initiative, I will work at a Beijing-based nonprofit organization called Compassion for Migrant Children (CMC). I will organize health awareness workshops and investigate the relations between community health centers and migrant workers. These workshops will be designed to help improve children's hygiene habits and correct their parents' misconceptions about various health-related topics, including breastfeeding, STDs and the role of antibiotics. I will continue blogging my experiences working with migrant children and interacting with health officials in Beijing.

I am forever in Dr. Richard Light's debt. While I'll be working this summer to understand public health in China, the opportunities that build up this summer project would not have even appeared before my eyes had I not left Yale and lived in China. I sincerely thank you.

share on: facebook