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Wired Youths In China & Japan Forget Character Forms
eldavojohn writes "The AFP brings a story of a growing concern that children in China and Japan suffer from 'character amnesia' when asked to write the complex characters they are so used to inputting via alphabet-based systems. The article claims this is a growing problem. In China, they have a word for it: 'tibiwangzi,' which means 'take pen, forget paper.' China Youth Daily polled 2,072 people and found that 83% have problems writing characters (although there's no indication if that was an online poll or not). A young woman who was interviewed explained her workaround: 'When I can't remember, I will take out my cellphone and find it (the character) and then copy it down.'"
The same thing is true in America. Kids even young adults can not write in cursive. They just had a study and the best teachers can get out of them is a mixture of printed and cursive lettering. And that study did not take into account the dropout rates.
So why are we complaining about deporting all the illegal aliens when so many kids don't graduate from high school.. They may not want to work in a hotel or swing a hammer but that is all they are fit to do. Most of them are not even fit to do that.
And no amount of money you throw at them will make a difference.
They already did it. China uses simplified characters instead of the old moldy traditional characters. Socialists enacted this reform to increase literacy among the peasantry. Unfortunately, language is culture and many old texts of wisdom, beauty, and learning are now unreadable. English speakers can, with help, read Shakespeare or "Rime of the Ancient Mariner" in the original. For the post-90s generation in China, anything older than 1950 is simply unavailable.
Shutting down free speech with violence isn't fighting fascism. It IS fascism!
Yeah, how dare you white folks try to make suggestions! Just sit in the corner and shut the fuck up! Only other cultures are allowed to come up with ideas!
Sure, it's inefficient. But how about this radical idea: we leave it for the Chinese to decide what to do? I know, goes against the grain, but there we are. How about an even more extreme idea: clean up your own culture before you even BEGIN to THINK about criticizing other cultures for their "inefficiencies"? How would your Greek people react if other cultures told them that their glyphs are incomprehensible and they needed to "reform"? Pick any fifty Greeks and put them in a room, and one or two of them can't read and write. How's that feel, imperialist?
Shutting down free speech with violence isn't fighting fascism. It IS fascism!