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First Sentence of the Essay: The Hook

☛ The modernization of a culture is a complex process that can generate issues, but can also fix multiple major problems in societies.

☛ Did you know that without noticing it, the impacts of the modernization process contribute to the well functioning of societies

☛ Did you know that modernization processes were essentials in order for societies to operate effectively?

☛ Sometimes, anglophones find grammar rules complicated to master, but in reality, they should feel lucky because they do not have thousands of complicated characters to learn!

My Final Essay

The Modernization of Chinese Characters:

A Complex and Advantageous Process for the Chinese Population

Sometimes, anglophones find grammar rules complicated to master, but in reality, they should feel lucky because they do not have thousands of complicated characters to learn! In fact, In China, starting in the 1890s, the writing system has been one of the principal aspects subject to a much-needed change to assure the well-functioning of the country. The citizens of China were experiencing many issues linked to the writing system, and decisions had to be taken in order to fix the numerous problems linked to education and governance. The modernization of Chinese characters was a long and beneficial process for China that started with the creation of The Committee of Script Reform in 1952 and was mostly influenced by technology due to the pressure of modernity, and the alarming rate of illiteracy of the population. In this paper, I will demonstrate that the process of Chinese characters’ modernization was beneficial for the citizens of China according to the noticeable positive changes that occurred following the process.

China is the world’s oldest surviving civilization, and it is known to have one of the earliest forms of written language. As mentioned in a short article written by Laurence Engel, a French essayist, archeologists would date the first significant usage of Chinese characters as far as 3500 years ago. They were able to come to that conclusion after analyzing old turtle carapaces that appeared to be carved with some type of hard-crafted tool. The complex writing system evolved in a significant way over the years, and as of today, the characters are often seen as an art form due to their impressive appearances. They are drawn using multiple brush strokes made in a particular order, in fact, some characters can be composed with as many as 18 strokes. Along with the complexity of each character, it is said that there are over 50 000 million Chinese characters, including traditional and simplified Chinese. The writing system is an important part of China’s historical background and it holds lots of memories and important events. The book Chinese Grammatology: Script Revolution and Literary Modernity, written by Yurou Zhong, explains that due to their remarkable artistic appearances, the characters are celebrated as the quintessential national treasure. Overall, Chinese characters are part of a writing system that is truly out of the ordinary.

Fast forward to the beginning of the twentieth century, the Chinese writing system was becoming a major worry in China. In fact, as the teacher John A. Jowett of the University of Glasgow mentioned in his book, the illiteracy rate of the Chinese rural population was abnormally high compared to other countries, with more than 52% of the population being illiterate (Jowett). Considering that the Roman alphabet is now dominating the world and taking into account the complexity of their writing system, the Chinese were worried that it would eventually put them in a disadvantageous situation. The Dutch writer Ian Buruma mentioned in his article that this high illiteracy rate was mainly related to the fact that “To be literate in the language, a person must be able to read and write at least three thousand characters. To enjoy a serious book, a reader must know several thousand more.” (Buruma). The whole process of writing, reading, and understanding the characters is extremely complicated, and the children's access to proper education has not always been easy. As explained in the book Chinese Script: History, Characters, Calligraphy, concerning the pronunciation, there are also four different tones which complicate the association of spoken words and characters. Along with the factor of illiteracy, the events that mainly initiated the process of the characters’ modernization were the Opium Wars in China.

The Opium Wars in China were part of the main triggering events of the script reform. As discussed in the article written by the former encyclopedia Britannica editor Kenneth Pletcher, the first opium war started in 1839 and ended three years later in 1842. The second one lasted four years and started in 1856. The wars were armed conflicts that took place in China caused by the attempt to suppress the opium trade, which was an agreement between western countries and China about the exportation of the medicinal herb called opium. The article “A Historical Survey on Modernization of Cultures” informs that following these wars, people called “the intellectuals” decided to get inspired by the western, capitalist, and developed countries that were being successful in many aspects of their culture, such as science, economy, military, etc. The intellectuals are individuals who are both part of the government and criticizers of the taken decisions. Their role is to critically think about different systems and decisions that would be beneficial for the country. Eventually, the Chinese intellectuals provoked a powerful and beneficial movement of change that they ended up calling the “Cultural Enlightenment” movement. This period of time triggered a different way of thinking; “In light of the western cultural belief crisis triggered by western capitalist countries, the cultural beliefs about people’s freedom, equality and universal love they advocated also run up against doubt.” (Kang 129). China was inspired by western countries, and they saw new successful opportunities to grow bigger in multiple aspects concerning education, economy, and society. It is in response to this cultural enlightenment that China officially proceeded with the creation of the committee of the script reform.

In order to officially begin the modernization process of Chinese characters, the people in charge of China’s governance had to select individuals with enough qualifications to do it. As mentioned in the journal article called “New Developments in Language Reform” written by Constantin Milsky, the Chinese Script Reform Association was formed in 1952. Chairman Mao, also known as Mao Zedong, was one of the members of the Reform of the Chinese Written Language, and he was part of the people who were highly supporting the “phoneticization common to all the languages of the world” (Milsky 100). As brought up in The book Kingdom of Characters written by Jing Tsu, The Chinese Script Reform Association was formed by many beneficiaries’ members such as China’s workers and peasants. Their opinions were considered important because they are part of the numerous people who could beneficiate from the simplified characters. The American linguist William H. Baxter mentioned in his book that some Chinese characters are over 3000 years old, and over the years, they have developed in a way that their complexity became greater, which was a problem for the future generations. The committee was given the task to revise traditional Chinese characters in order to release modified new ones. The article written by Yang Wang explains that the members took the approximate number of 47,035 existing Chinese characters and created a list of fewer basic characters that would be used in the everyday life, such as in newspapers and advertisements. The list of new simplified characters was beneficial because, in order to be able to read such articles, the knowledge of around only 3500 characters was necessary. They were made with fewer strokes; therefore, they were a lot easier to learn and more accessible to a greater number of people. It was four years later, in 1956 that the first list of simplified Chinese characters was officialized (Zhong). Overall, the committee of the script reform made the learning process of the Chinese written language easier for the high number of people learning the language.

The multiple positive outcomes of the script reform were beneficial for the Chinese population. Years following the script reform, some improvement in the literacy rates were noted. The academic search made by Hajo Frölich explains that following the Script Reform, teachers were sensitized to teach their students correctly the modernized characters. Also, in the 1980s, in order to make the writing learning process easier, periods of time for handwriting classes were put into place for students to practice their calligraphy. As mentioned in the journal article “Patterns of Literacy in the People’s Republic of China” with all the educational measures taken to teach the new modernized characters reviewed by the Committee of Script Reform, the illiteracy rate decreased by 20%. This reduction had a positive impact on the literate population: "...the size of the literate population increased from around 200 million to 500 million” (Jowett 426). This outcome is effective for the government concerning the educational aspects of China’s developing cities, since more teachers were trained to correctly teach the new writing system. Overall, the results of the modernization of Chinese characters had positive impacts on the entire Chinese population.

In conclusion, the modernization of Chinese characters was a long and beneficial process for multiple reasons such as the educational system and the high illiteracy rate in China. The complex process of the character's evolution was put together with the help of The Committee of Script Reform formed in 1952. It has since helped the literacy rate of the Chinese population and fixed multiple problems that helped the well-functioning of the country. Following the same subject, it would be interesting to focus on a more recent issue that suggests that technological devices, such as phones and computers, negatively influence people to forge the way the characters are written when it comes to handwriting sentences.

1536 Words

Works cited

Buruma, Ian. How the Chinese Language Got Modernized. The New Yorker. 10 January 2022 https://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2022/01/17/how-the-chinese-language-got-modernized

Engel,Laurence. « L’écriture chinoise », Classe Site pédagogique de la bibliothèque nationale de France, 1 octobre 2010, expositions.bnf.fr/chine/pdf/ecriture.pdf.

Frölich, Hajo. “The Chinese Character: Handwriting Between Utility and Identidy in Twentieth-Century China” Paedagogica Historica 55, no 6, December 2019, EBSCOhost, https://dc153.dawsoncollege.qc.ca:2325/10.1080/00309230.2019.1653946.

Yurou Zhong. Chinese Grammatology : Script Revolution and Literary Modernity, 1916–1958. Columbia University Press, 2019. EBSCOhost, dc153.dawsoncollege.qc.ca:2070/login.aspx? direct=true&AuthType=ip,url,uid&db=e000xna&AN=2090761&site=eds-live&scope=site.

Jing Tsu. Kingdom of Characters: The Language Revolution That Made China Modern. Riverhead Books, 2022.

Jowett, A. John. “Patterns of Literacy in the People’s Republic of China.” GeoJournal, vol. 18, no. 4, Springer, 1989, pp. 417–27, http://www.jstor.org/stable/41144462.

Kang, Li. A Historical Survey on Modernization of Chinese Culture. Canadian Centre of Science and Education, March 28, 2013. https://d1wqtxts1xzle7.cloudfront.net/33711710/Asian_Social_Science-with-cover-page-v2.pdf?Expires=1645496200&Signature=G8LGWXe8iX0-YmhJs3qLgxjk3SolNNRx6AS0L3HxnqxDYfFpxavKj~z7GleR2cyURYz8kgpKkbFgUxTF-ZVd4QglRi1zXNMh5B8GFEh4CTp-dILlB7o-Nz4sObk4hXAa1jcShLBegI8nJKKTXBgHumo9BvzR5x~hwksGbUUAGvl3l9eSRgcp3mF1GKDS3dBBxRgbytL~mUoxhVsg46aFDU7Kzt0hYCR8sSWInDQrkFuubcJnVxGb2lI8E9-vgQP7x47q9i0Scggiq~6TbUvs96bNy01IgW-n7Ui7Bd~GLuyj6ZIRL7n1pY0ppeKiWawlPsMNdD5hnev74wEeN6GSGA__&Key-Pair-Id=APKAJLOHF5GGSLRBV4ZA#page=13

Milsky, Constantin. “New Developments in Language Reform.” The China Quarterly, no. 53, Jan. 1973, pp. 98–133. EBSCOhost, https://dc153.dawsoncollege.qc.ca:2070/login.aspx?direct=true&AuthType=ip,url,uid&db=edsjsr&AN=edsjsr.652509&site=eds-live&scope=site.

Pletcher, Kenneth . “Opium Wars”, Britannica, February 5 2021.

https://www.britannica.com/topic/Opium-Wars

Thomas O. Höllmann. Chinese Script : History, Characters, Calligraphy. Columbia University Press, 2017. EBSCOhost, https://dc153.dawsoncollege.qc.ca:2070/login.aspx?direct=true&AuthType=ip,url,uid&db=e000xna&AN=1628838&site=eds-live&scope=site.

Wang, Yang. “Introduction to Chinese Characters” Brown University, 2011, https://www.brown.edu/about/administration/international-affairs/year-of-china/language-and-cultural-resources/introduction-chinese-characters/introduction-chinese-characters#:~:text=Oracle%20Bone%20Inscriptions%20refers%20to,earliest%20form%20of%20Chinese%20characters

William H. Baxter, and Laurent Sagart. Old Chinese : A New Reconstruction. Oxford University Press, 2013. EBSCOhost, https://dc153.dawsoncollege.qc.ca:2070/login.aspx?direct=true&AuthType=ip,url,uid&db=e000xna&AN=826950&site=eds-live&scope=site.

Presentation

"A Historical Survey on Modernization of Chinese Culture."

Wang, Yang. “Introduction to Chinese Characters” Brown University, 2011, https://www.brown.edu/about/administration/international-affairs/year-of-china/language-and-cultural-resources/introduction-chinese-characters/introduction-chinese-characters#:~:text=Oracle%20Bone%20Inscriptions%20refers%20to,earliest%20form%20of%20Chinese%20characters