[Opinion] There’s Something about Chinese Letters?

Young students and their parents are always as agile as they can be when it comes to learning. While the authorities mulling whether to introduce Chinese in elementary school course, children have already began to learn Chinese. Some 200,000 students already applied for the official test of Chinese set for November this year. The government decides to include Chinese in the scholastic aptitude test starting from 2005 just as interest in Chinese continues to rise, sparking the Chinese boom. English already became a must-learn language for small children while scholars still debating over whether to allow the early education or not.

▷Regardless of what the authorities and experts say, parents go their own ways of child education. How hard experts try to explain why the early Chinese education is not helpful, mothers would only reply “I do not care.” Their attitude reflects mistrust in public education system, but it has also something to do with the fact that people grow too impatient to wait for a policy decision in this ever-changing society. In the era of keen competition, consumers in the education area feel they need to get better prepared for competition in the future.

▷In fact, the on-again-off-again policy of the government has produced a great number of Chinese illiterates. Despite their interest in Chinese language, many young people are having difficulties understanding the letters. When they talk with their parents, they also often feel the need to understand some Chinese characters. With more than 70% of the words we use being Chinese, it would be much easier to understand our own language if one is familiar with Chinese letters. It was an indiscreet and blind move to decide to stop teaching Chinese.

▷Even in Southeast Asian countries where Chinese are widely used, people have difficulties with the language. Using Chinese over the computer takes much time and is inefficient. Some cite the inefficiency of Chinese letters as the reason China and Japan are lagging behind in information technology. Those advocating Chinese education, of course, see Chinese as an effective tool in understanding our own language better rather than a language to adopt. What does not fit to computers, however, are bound to disappear in this tech world. What’s worrisome is that the public education is increasingly being displaced by the private education. Presidential candidates are all saying they will be an education-minded leader. Whether they will be able to tackle on the deeply rooted problem remains an open question, however.

Hong Chan-shik, Editorial Writer chansik@donga.com