THEY'RE NOT FROM THE MAINLAND!!!
My school, and all Chinese language schools in Taiwan (to my knowlege) teach traditional Chinese characters. They're the official characters here in Taiwan. The other day in class our teacher mistakenly used a simplified character when writing on the board. This isn't unheard of. Taiwanese often use simplified versions of some characters when they're handwriting, and in a rush. Nonetheless one of the Japanese students had a bit of a giggle, and said something like "just like on the mainland." Well this produced an incredible outburst from the teacher. She lept to the defense of her simplified character usage and said everything she could to disassociate it with the mainland. She began to shout "They're not from the mainland! All Chinese use simplified Characters! It has NOTHING to do with the Mainland!" This was both entertaining and educational. I was entertained by her few minutes of tirade, and learned that one had best be careful when making comparisons to the Mainland. Some people can get pretty worked up about the topic.
Comments
That's hilarious.
I don't think that all Chinese use simplified characters, or at least they don't use all of the simplified characters. Some simplified characters come from common written variants, but a lot of them were invented by the Communist government and didn't really exist before then.
Posted by: John B | January 19, 2006 2:48 PM
I never see anyone, HKers and TWers included, who writes the traditional forms of 竈(furnace), 龜 (turtle), or even 臺 (platform). It's just too much of a pain. Most character simplifications in modern Chinese were already in use before the 60's, the PRC just standardized them.
As a result in Taiwan, one may encounter four or five different simplifications of a single character that nobody feels like writing out. Also, other characters are frequently used as substitutes. One common example is writing 關 as 閉 on elevator doors, since they share the same radical and have nearly the same meaning. Why the Taiwanese are so proud of not using standard simplifications, I have no idea... but they sure are.
BTW, are you at 師大 by any chance?
Posted by: Mark | January 31, 2006 8:33 AM
Yes I am at Shi-Da
Posted by: Ryan Whalen | March 5, 2006 5:23 PM