Wu Guangqiang

    jw368@163.com

    OUR world is increasingly digitalized and automatized with the wide use of smart gadgets: computers, smartphones and the like. It’s a familiar sight to see nearly everyone on sidewalks, public transportation or in cafes hooked on a trendy gizmo, usually a tablet computer or a smartphone, busily sending messages or playing online games while totally oblivious of what’s going on around them.

    Speaking of the younger generations, who have grown up with the accompaniment of countless modern inventions, some would say: “They are indeed brighter than their elders.”

    Yes, they sure are, if judging by the fact that teenagers became adept with modern devices seemingly at birth while their parents seem to be dazzled by the whizzing pace of constantly upgrading hardware and software. Older people are often considered “computer illiterate” — or “modern device illiterate,” to be more exact.

    Without a doubt, young people who master advanced knowledge and technology including the Internet, Internet of Things and 3-D printing have splendid futures within their grasp.

    Yet, it’s highly dubious that the so-called “computer generations” are inevitably more intelligent and creative. There have been concerns about over-emphasizing high-tech training at the expense of developing cognitive ability in Chinese people. Many negative consequences have already emerged; among others, the ability to correctly write Chinese characters and pen decent essays in the native language is decreasing among most Chinese, particularly teenagers. Unless redefined, the abilities to read and write have been the foremost criteria for literacy.

    I’ve been fretting that such degradation will, in time, result in an overall regression in cognitive competence among the Chinese, which may in turn undermine the capacities for learning and innovation of the Chinese nation as a whole.

    That’s no exaggeration given the origin, nature and features of Chinese characters. With a history of 3,000 years, Chinese characters, also known as square-shaped characters, create the world’s most unique writing system because of their magical methods of word-formation and expressive functions of shape, tone and meaning. Originating as pictographs, the earliest Chinese characters represented objects in pictorial forms, such as 日 (the sun) and 月 (the moon). To tackle the increasing numbers of new characters, four methods for forming Chinese characters were developed, thus making the system more complicated and complete.

    One of the most fascinating parts of Chinese characters is that almost every character reflects the thinking of ancient culture. For instance, the character 安 (peace) shows that the peace can be achieved when there is a woman in a house according to the character’s two components, the upper of which means a house and the lower a woman.

    Some historians owe, at least partly, the thousands-year-long unity and continuous civilization of the Chinese nation to the presence of Chinese characters, because diverse spoken languages encourage tendencies toward independence while a unified written language holds different social groups together. That may partly explain why there are hundreds of tiny nations in Europe, while China has so many different ethnic groups speaking a variety of dialects living together in harmony for thousands of years.

    Unfortunately, more and more Chinese people are losing contact with this language of beauty, wisdom and philosophy. The habit of writing Chinese with a writing instrument has given way to that of typing and clicking on a computer, leading millions to being unable to write Chinese competently, not to mention fluently.

    More than 80 percent of the respondents in a 2012 survey said the Chinese language is suffering a sharp fall in its application levels. Nearly 61 percent of respondents said that was a “crisis for Chinese.”

    One of my frequent quizzes proves the seriousness of the problem. Very often, I ask people, old or young, primary pupils or high school students, or even students with college degrees, to write out a simple Chinese character: 膏 (meaning fat, paste or cream). It is so frequently used in words such as yagao (toothpaste) that everyone sees it every day. Surprisingly, however, more than 80 percent of people I ask write it incorrectly.

    Fortunately, authorities have come to recognize the dangerous decline and are beginning to take action to reverse the trend. CCTV and Henan TV are holding programs to rekindle the public’s interest in knowing and writing Chinese characters.

    China would no longer be China without its beautiful characters.

    (The author is an English tutor and a freelance writer.)