"Ooh, Miss! You've made a mistake."

Last December, when some Mainland children on a visit to Taiwan were taken to a junior high school in Taipei for a taste of local school life, one of them exclaimed in surprise when she saw the teacher write the words "Daqing Oilfield" (大庆油田)on the blackboard in large characters.

"You've written an extra dot in qing' ( 庆 )!" said the helpful girl earnestly. How was she to know that the teacher never usually wrote simplified characters in class and had written that 'qing' with the extra dot specially for her young visitors, never dreaming that she would disappoint them.

The difference between the writing systems across the Taiwan Straits is a phenomenon which crops up unobtrusively in people's everyday lives, catching many unawares. This April, when Cheyne Chiu, Secretary-General of the Straits Exchange Foundation, went to Mainland China to discuss the questions of registered mail and document verification with the Mainland's Association for Relations Across the Straits, their agreement was drawn up and signed in both simplified and complex character versions, in order to "respect the linguistic customs of both sides."

Since travel and communications between Taiwan and the Mainland have been opened up, many people have received letters full of Simplified characters from friends and family on the Mainland, and sometimes find themselves baffled as to how to read them. And as cross-strait exchanges increase and more and more Mainland publications reach Taiwan, many people, when they pick up a volume printed in the Mainland's simplified characters, feel they are faced with a book of seven seals.

The art of calligraphy is best able to express the clear structure and the fusion of sound and meaning typical of traditional complex characters. But do only calligraphers have the right to understand complex characters?

One-parent family, instant noodles? ! People going to visit mainland relatives find themselves surrounded by simplified characters from the moment they get through customs. For people from Taiwan, these simplified characters and unaccustomed phraseology, however mundane, give a sense of stepping into a different world.

Unfamiliar expressions such as vitalize the economy', control prices', or apply for a transfer,' and the different words used for such everyday expressions as one-parent family, gifted children,' or instant noodles,' all add to this feeling.

Lin Hsin-chang, a well-known baseball coach who used to work in Taiwan but who now trains a Mainland team, was known to baseball aficionados in Taiwan as General Hsin'; now he is called 'Instructor Lin'. And when friends from Taiwan who look him up in the Mainland sit down to watch a game, they may find themselves mystified by the calls they hear from the players, who use different words than in Taiwan for get a hit,'home run,' 'nice hit,' nice pitch' and so on.

There are even more cases of written characters which mislead. The word kan' ( 干 ),used so often on the Mainland, could betrunk' ( 幹 ), or it could just as easily be 乾 ( 'dry')or even 淦 (a river in Jiangxi Province); 卜 could be the 'pu' in 'chanpu' ( 占 卜 'divination'), or the 'po' in 'luopo' ( 蘿蔔 'radish'); and when the shop sign says 'mianfen' ( 面粉 ), are they selling cosmetics ( 'face 面 powder' in traditional characters), or flour ( 麵 )? If they're holding a 'wuhui'( 午會 ), is it a meeting at midday( 午 ),or is there dancing( 舞 )?

Someone has described how seeing Mainland simplified characters gives one the feeling of having been transported to the Mainland itself: one can't 'see' one's family ( 親'ch'in' -- 'relatives'has been simplified to 亲 by omitting 見 'chien' -- 'to see'), love has no 'heart' ( 'ai' has been simplified from 愛 to 爱, removing 心'hsin' -- 'heart'), production 'brings nothing forth' ( 產 'ch'an' -- 'to produce' has become 产, removing 生 'sheng'- 'to bear, to bring forth'), and the toilet has no 'door' to open or close ( 開 'k'ai' -- 'to open' has been simplified to 开, and 關 'kuan'-- 'to close' has become 关, in both cases removing 門 'men'-- 'door').

Dose'mingt'ien wuhui' mean there's a dance tomorrow? Or a meeting tomorrow lunchtime? Visitors from Taiwan have no choice but to ask the locals.(Cartoon by Tsai Chih-Pen)

Chinese characters as sacrificial lambs: Admittedly this kind of sarcasm may be a little sharp, but 37 years on from the Chinese Communists' reform of the writing system, the Mainland's simplified characters have reached a point where a critical reappraisal is unavoidable.

In April of last year Liu Bin, Director of the Mainland's "State Language, Work Committee," indicated that currently the Mainland's most salient problem in the area of language and writing is the general public's frequent indiscriminate creation and misuse of characters, the deliberate use of complex characters, and wrongly written characters.

The indiscriminate creation and use of characters is a phenomenon which has been around for a long time. Kung Peng-cheng, Director of the Department of Cultural and Educational Affairs at the Executive Yuan's Mainland Affairs Council, believes that when the Chinese Communists originally instituted their reform of the written language, they failed to consider the systematic and rational nature of Chinese characters. He sees this as the root cause of the widespread indiscriminate creation of new simplified characters today.

The Communists' introduction of simplified characters began in 1956. The 'Scheme for Simplifying Chinese Characters' proposed that year, listed more than 2000 simplified forms and provided the standard for the simplified characters in use throughout Mainland China today.

Mao Zedong once declared that "The writing system must be reformed, and we must move towards a phonetic script, as is commonly used throughout the world." He believed that simplification was the inevitable course of historical development, and his purpose was to prepare for the replacement of Chinese characters by a phonetic writing system. This had its roots in the situation in the early years of the Republic.

From the late Ching dynasty to the early years of the Republic of China, from the Opium Wars to the eight-year War of Resistance against Japan, China suffered many setbacks at the hands of invading foreign powers; the state was weak and the people lived in obvious destitution, making the country's disadvantages even more apparent.

Some among the worried intellectuals seeking ways to save and strengthen the nation, laid the blame at the door of 'inferior' Chinese culture, and went on to pronounce that Chinese characters could not compete with the phonetic alphabets of western writing systems; some even said that the cause of the widespread illiteracy of the time was that Chinese characters were too difficult to understand. Thus a great many voices were raised in favor of reforming the writing system. Intellectuals from the time of the May 4th Movement, such as Chien Hsuen-Tung, Lu Hsun, Hu Shih and others, were all supporters of simplified characters.

Looking at the many and varied signs and notices in the back streets of Guangzhou, many visitors from Taiwan have the feeling that a lot of the characters are wrongly written.

Simplified characters are like the Red Guards: Spoken and written language are the medium by which people communicate; as they develop over time, a reasonable amount of appropriate standardization and reevaluation is necessary. But the way in which the Chinese Communists brought together a large number of intellectuals and pursued an all-out policy of Chinese character simplification only a few years after coming to power, really is something rarely seen in history.

How great is the influence of simplified characters? Professor Huang Yung-wu of Taipei Municipal Teachers' College once described the damage done to Chinese culture by simplified characters by saying "Simplified characters are like the Red Guards."

He believes that simplified characters break down the inherently systematic nature of the Chinese writing system and lack any theoretical advantages. They will only make later generations unable to read Chinese characters, cutting them off from traditional culture. This is the same kind of destruction as was inflicted by the Red Guards.

He cites the following examples: the character 葉 ('ye' -- 'leaf') bears the 'grass' radical 艸, so that one can see immediately that it refers to plant life; but it also has the phonetic component 枼, which has the meaning 'thin and laminar,' i.e. the phonetic also contributes to the meaning. Other characters with the same 枼 phonetic include 諜 ('tieh' -- 'spy'), 碟 ('tieh' -- 'small dish'), 蝶 ('tieh' -- 'butterfly') and 喋 (pronounced 'tieh' in 喋喋 'tiehtieh' -- 'to chatter', or 'cha' in 唼喋 'shacha', -- 'the sound of fish or waterfowl feeding'). The radical on the left shows the category of meaning, while the phonetic on the right expresses both sound and meaning; but unhappily, 葉 has been simplified to 叶; not only does this assign it to quite the wrong radical, but the meaning of 'thin, laminar plant element,' implied by its membership in the series of characters with the phonetic 枼, is also lost.

Another example is 髮 ('fa' -- 'hair'), now simplified as 发 in the same way as 發 ('fa' -- 'to emit, to outwardly express'). Does 秀發 now mean 美麗的秀髮 ('meili tehsiufa' -- 'beautiful hair'), or 聰明秀發('ts 'ungming hsiufa' -- 'intelligent and pretty')? Does 叶韻 mean 'classical rhyming'('hsiehyun'), or 'the "entering" tone rhyme "ye"'('yeyun')?

Professor Huang Pei-jung of Taiwan University's Department of Chinese has pointed out a number of problems with the Mainland's simplified characters. These include firstly that they "confuse characters" -- for instance, 嘆 ('t'an' -- 'to sigh'), 漢 ('Han' -- 'the Han dynasty'), 勸 ('ch'uan' -- 'to urge'), 觀 ('kuan' -- 'to observe'), 對 ('tui' -- to respond'), and 戲 ('hsi' -- 'play'), have all been simplified using the element 又 ; secondly that they "destroy characters' visual structure" -- for instance, 華 ('hua' -- 'magnificent') is written 华, 書 ('shu' -- 'book') has been simplified to 书, and 堯('Yao' -- a legendary monarch in ancient China) has become 尧 ; and thirdly that they have "lost their etymological roots" -- for instance, 構 ('kou' -- 'to construct') is simplified as 构 . In addition they are difficult to learn and will make people unable to read the writings of past generations, thus forming a barrier to cultural transmission.

Looking closely at these signs, one can find examples of all the major problems present in Mainland usage of Chinese characters: mixing simplified and complex characters, indiscriminately creating new characters, and miswriting and misusing characters.

Educational efficiency is not related to whether simplified or complex characters are used: But the Chinese Communists claim that with the great number of illiterates in Mainland China, "One cannot possibly require everyone to understand abstruse complex characters." Professor Li Xinkui of Guangzhou's Zhongshan University believes that there are many levels of educational achievement, and there is no need for simple village folk to know a lot of difficult or obscure characters--it is enough for them to learn the ones they need in their everyday lives. If one day they have sufficient knowledge, or a real desire for broader study, and wish to read old literary, historical or other works, then it will not be too late to learn the complex forms.

Professor Li points out the main motive for the Chinese Communists' simplification campaign: the belief that simplified characters facilitate universal education. But to this day there are many harsh realities which react against the simplification policy.

"Taiwan has not pursued character simplification, yet it has a literacy rate above 95%; Mainland China has been using simplified characters for over thirty years, but there don't seem to be any less illiterate people than before," says Huang Pei-jung.

Besides, from the point of view of educational efficiency, simplified characters are not necessarily any better than complex ones. Research by Professor Cheng Chao-ming of Taiwan University's Psychology Department indicates that learning to read and write involves both "distinguishing words and characters" and "differentiating the meaning of characters"; neither of these is related to the number of brush strokes in a character. Both complex and simple characters may be similar in appearance and therefore difficult to distinguish, such as 傅 ('fu' -- 'to instruct') and 傳('ch'uan' -- 'to transmit'/'chuan' -- 'commentary'), or 已 ('yi' -- 'already') and 己 ('chi' -- 'self) or they may equally be dissimilar and therefore easily distinguished, such as 補 ('bu' -- 'to mend')and 馳 ('ch'ih' -- 'to gallop'), or 田 ('t'ian' -- 'field') and 戶 ('hu' -- 'door').

The visiting cards printed by this shop in Guangzhou are all in complex characters. Is this because people wish to pass themselves off as cultured? Or a response to a practical need in contacts with Taiwan business people?

Is a "new cultural elite" emerging? The Chinese Communists' view that only calligraphers and those studying literature and history need learn traditional complex characters is also open to argument. Huang Pei-jung observes that breaking down the elitist class structure and freeing the proletariat from oppression were originally the most prominently displayed features of Chinese Communist power; yet today those who are able to read complex characters have become a 'new cultural elite.'

Another reason why the Mainland does not agree that simplified characters are an obstacle to cultural transmission is that over the last thirty years, many ancient works of poetry and literature, such as The Dream of the Red Chamber, Notes to the 'Records of the Grand Historian', and Three Hundred Tang Dynasty Poems have been published in simplified characters, so that in the words of Li Xinkui, "People interested in reading these works need not worry that by not knowing the complex forms of characters, they will have lost the opportunity."

But Professor Huang Pei-jung of Taiwan University believes that simplified-character editions of ancient texts cannot necessarily completely replace the original editions. Classical poetry and literature contain many puns and allusions based on similarities of sound or form between characters, so that if, for instance, 傑 ('chieh' -- 'outstanding') is written as 杰, or 適('shih' -- 'suitable') as 适 (traditionally read'k'uo' -- 'swift'), then is the meaning the same or is some allusion implied? It is doubtful whether notes to simplified character editions can cover such matters comprehensively; surely they represent a lot of extra effort, and may even add to the confusion!

Since Mainland China has opened up to the outside world, the problems already present in its writing system have become even more prominent. Under the influence of contact with Hong Kong and Taiwan, complex characters have enjoyed a large-scale revival in major cities throughout the Mainland. Professor Yao Jung-sung of Taiwan Normal University quotes an article by a Mainland scholar as saying that the "indiscriminate use" of complex characters can be seen throughout the country, and that in formal contexts such as blackboard newspaper headlines, publicity slogans, notices, posters etc., young people like to use complex characters such as 報 ('pao' -- 'report'), 學 ('hsueh' -- 'study'), 團 ('t'uan' -- 'group') and so on, which they feel are more 'correct.' This flies in the face of character standardization.

Writing complex characters to appear highbrow: An article in the Mainland's 'Law Daily' reports that for one business card printing company which receives an average of three thousand orders a day, more than half its clients ask to have their cards printed in complex characters. Another article reports that a majority of dedications and inscriptions written by party and state leaders, calligraphers and so on, are written in complex characters, and that shop signs and even advertisements for such products as skin cream, aimed mainly at local people, use complex characters to attract customers.

Li Xinkui states that in the larger southern Chinese cities, there is a real "resurgence of complex characters," but that it is "mainly restricted to a few organizations with relatively close contacts with Hong Kong and Taiwan, or else to ordinary people trying to pass themselves off as cultured, as it is fashionable to show that one is able to write complex characters."

Why is it that ordinary people should wish to appear cultured? Kung Peng-cheng observes that this phenomenon should give the Chinese Communists food for thought.

He takes the view that the level of accomplishment in using the written language is closely linked to educational status. People with an ordinary level of education can use the characters in the National List of Characters in Common Use; somewhat better-educated people can use the characters in the Secondary List, and people with more education still can use rarer characters; but "this in no way means that all those who can write difficult or unusual characters wish to cut themselves off from the masses, or that one should curse and condemn the more difficult and rare characters, and that they need to be simplified."

Kung Peng-cheng goes on to say that for this reason, "If everyone who believes he is cultured has a desire to use complex characters, then as a society gradually develops and its standard of education continuously improves, complex characters are bound to appear more and more frequently. This is the real social nature of culture, and the real trend in the development of the writing system."

In recent years, the Mainland authorities have become aware of the phenomenon of people indiscriminately creating characters such as 拨 (for撥 'po' -- 'stir, poke'), 歺 (for餐 'ts'an' -- 'meal'), and incorrectly confusing characters such as 復　('fu' -- 'return') and 複 ('fu' -- 'repeat'), 發 ('fa' -- 'emit') and 髮 ('fa' -- 'hair') or 鍾 ('chung' -- 'concentrate') and 鐘 ('chung' -- 'bell'). Over the last few years, the main work of the Mainland's 'Language Committee' has been to standardize the characters used by ordinary people.

But the Communists are very wary of the "resurgence of complex characters" and the mixed use of both complex and simplified characters among the people at large. As people gradually use complex characters more and more, they are doing their utmost to stem this trend.

During the Asian Games two years ago, the Peking city government corrected more than twenty thousand complex characters on road signs, advertisements and so on. In July of fast year the overseas edition of the 'People's Daily,' which had originally changed to using complex characters for the benefit of overseas readers, changed back to simplified characters.

From characters scratched on bones and shells, to characters written with computers, the Chinese writing system has seen many changes. Is a trend from complexity to simplicity historically inevitable? This proposition is currently coming under scrutiny.

Act today, tomorrow will be too late! Why are the Communists so persistent in this? Associate Professor Chou Chih-wen of Tamkang University observes that the Communists have inherited the anti-traditionalist spirit of the May 4th movement, and this combined with their ideology which embraces popular culture and uses it as a political tool, means that Mainland leaders' views on matters concerning the writing system are very different from those held in Taiwan.

Uncompromisingly, the Chinese Communists even make using the officially prescribed characters a non-negotiable political objective. Liu Bin, Chairman of the Mainland's Language Committee, asserts that the spoken and written language are symbols of national sovereignty, and there can be no going back on the policy of using simplified characters. To do so would cause "immeasurable damage to the cause of socialism."

For Taiwan-based scholars, from the point of view of keeping traditional culture alive, and for communication across the Taiwan Straits, not only is a change from the Mainland's simplified characters imperative, but it is a matter of urgency, on which "if they fail to act today, tomorrow will be too late."

Huang Pei-jung points out that today, educated mainlanders over the age 40 are most likely to still be familiar with complex characters. Once these people pass from the scene, reviving knowledge of the treasures of traditional culture, or even unifying the writing systems in Taiwan and the Mainland, will be easier said than done.

Based on their mutual concern for Chinese cultural issues, scholars of the written language from both sides of the Taiwan Straits have held three meetings on the Mainland in the period since Taiwan residents have been free to visit relatives there, to discuss the unification of both sides' writing systems. In view of the urgency of this issue, here in Taiwan the government has earmarked funds for research into such topics as the writing systems used on both sides of the Straits, the Chinese spoken and written language, languages related to Chinese, and establishing standard computer codes for the conversion of Chinese characters.

The writing system as the starting point for cross-straits communication? The hard work on both sides has not failed to bring about a certain convergence of views. Some Mainland scholars, led by Yuan Xiaoyuan, Chairman of the "Beijing International Chinese Character Research Committee," have proposed that people should be able to "read complex characters while writing simplified characters." Their hope is that everyone should be able at least to read the complex forms of characters, enabling them to gain a good understanding of Chinese traditional culture. Their ideas have received a favorable response from some scholars in Taiwan. As a way of resolving the dispute between Taiwan and the Mainland over the written language, Cheng Chao-ming proposes that perhaps complex characters could be used for printing Chinese, while the simplified forms would be used for handwriting.

Many scholars from Taiwan believe that to be realistic, if the Mainland's writing system could reach the stage of people being able to "read complex characters while writing simplified characters," this in itself would be a great step forward. Under the influence of Yuan Xiaoyuan and other scholars, key elementary schools in Peking have experimented with teaching complex characters. And as contacts between Taiwan and the Mainland intensify, in response to demand from publishers in Taiwan, more and more Mainland printers are able to typeset and print in complex characters. These and other factors all help to promote the teaching of complex characters.

In Taiwan, as the number of Mainland publications in circulation escalates, an even more pressing need is for formal training for local typists and typesetters in converting between simplified and complex characters. Teachers of Chinese based overseas also urgently need teaching materials which match the simplified to the complex forms. At present, many local printing companies have already compiled and published their own conversion lists, and software for converting Chinese-character computer files between complex and simplified forms are already on public sale; but as there is no single standard for the complex and simplified character systems on the market, there are many problems in using them, so there is an urgent need for unification.

In fact, for people in Taiwan to study simplified characters is not a sign of weakness towards the other side or of 'bowing to reality'; if the written language really is a medium for communicating thought, then each side must take a fresh look at the other's writing system. When each has understood the other, then one can go on to discuss the two systems' interdependence and the ways in which they influence each other. Thus it seems that the writing system really is a starting point for communication.