Chinese Character Handwriting Skills Face Erosion Amidst Digital Dominance

A man checks his phone while resting in a shopping mall in Beijing on July 18, 2023. Greg Baker/AFP via Getty Images

Students participated in a preliminary round of a Chinese character dictation competition at a university in Wuhan on Oct. 13, where a freshman scored only two out of 100 and jokingly called himself an “illiteracy” college student.

During the test, the student, identified only as Liu, struggled to handwrite characters and resorted to homophones, i.e., words that sound the same but have different meanings.

Liu said in a Weibo video clip that he had an arts major who rarely wrote by hand, and he hadn’t prepared in advance for the exam due to its late notice. He said he recognized every word but struggled to write them by hand, resorting to writing homophones instead.

He said in today’s digital age, where cell phones and computers reign supreme, this phenomenon of dwindling handwriting skills has become increasingly common. He advised people to practice writing by hand more to avoid similar situations.

Cultural Importance

Some scholars have said that Chinese characters represent a divine transmission of language, and the trend of substituting characters with homophones threatens to dilute the cultural significance embedded within the written language.

Retired teacher Lin Zhe (a pseudonym) from Shanghai emphasized the profound cultural importance carried by Chinese characters in an interview with The Epoch Times.

“Chinese characters encapsulate the essence of 5,000 years of civilization, from their forms and pronunciations to idioms and allusions derived from them,” he said.

“They are the repository of deep cultural significance. Chinese culture is intrinsically linked with Chinese characters, serving as the bedrock that has carried Chinese civilization through millennia. Traditions exist for a reason and ought to be preserved. Despite technological advancements, some traditions are sacrosanct.”

Concerning the issue of “forgetting how to write characters,” a survey conducted by the Shanghai Science Popularization Network across 12 cities, including Beijing and Shanghai, found that 94.1 percent of respondents have experienced this predicament.

The main culprit is the excessive reliance on the internet, with keyboards replacing handwriting and communication veering toward simplicity and superficiality. Many opt for characters with similar pronunciations as substitutes when they can’t recall how to write a character.

Recent college graduate Liu Qian works on her laptop computer in the room she rents in an apartment in Beijing on July 7, 2022. Olivia Zhang/AP Photo

Dr. Li Yuanhua, a former professor at Capital National University now residing in Australia, spoke with The Epoch Times about the effects of mobile phones and computers.

“In today’s world, mobile phones and computers have become the primary tools for written communication, rendering the traditional act of handwriting almost obsolete,” Dr. Li said.

“The imagery that traditionally connects characters to their meanings slowly fades away, leading to widespread forgetfulness. This poses a significant threat to traditional culture. Chinese characters, with their rich cultural significance, are a divine transmission of language,” Dr. Li said.

“This is the second time Chinese characters are at risk of destruction. The first occurred when the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) introduced so-called simplified characters, which significantly altered the forms of characters by simplifying strokes, radicals, and components. This led to the loss of the character’s essence.

“Now, with the prevalence of pinyin, mobile phones, and computers, people are even forgetting the basic character forms, marking the second stage of cultural erosion in China.”