Introduction
Writing Chinese and Japanese in our digital age is easier than ever. For example, it is possible to type such words as 麒麟 (giraffe/Chinese unicorn; qílín in Mandarin/kirin in Japanese), 麝香 (musk; shèxiāng/jakō), or even 饕餮 (gluttonous; tāotiè/tōtetsu) effortlessly, in spite of the fact that they contain relatively complicated and/or uncommon Chinese characters (hànzì in Mandarin and kanji in Japanese).Footnote 1 This ease of input is made possible in large part through the use of modern, phonetic IME (Input Method Editors)—software systems that allow the user to input Chinese or Japanese phonetically using Roman letters. Accordingly, the vast majority of both native and non-native speakers of Chinese and Japanese prefer these IME over the alternatives.Footnote 2 However, it seems that such neoteric writing technologies also give rise to certain side effects, which many observers deem undesirable, to say the least. One of the more conspicuous of these side effects is the phenomenon of so-called ‘character amnesia’, a state of affairs in which speakers of Chinese and Japanese, who are fully capable of writing (and obviously reading) almost any word they want to by electronic means, often find themselves unable to handwrite correctly many of the same words if and when the need arises. In other words, they might experience this as a state of ‘it's on the tip of my tongue’ or, more accurately, ‘on the tip of my pen’.
As explained below, this phenomenon has brought about the creation of a prolonged and heated debate which is most evident in the People's Republic of China (PRC), but also in Japan as well as the English-speaking world. This article aims to examine the origins and scope of this international discourse—which is predominantly alarmist in tone—as well as to assess the coherence and validity of its principal arguments. More importantly perhaps, the article seeks to make sense of the possible forces and motives behind this discourse by analysing it in light of sociolinguist Deborah Cameron's well-known concept of ‘verbal hygiene’—‘the motley collection of discourses and practices through which people attempt to “clean up” language and make its structure or its use conform more closely to their ideals of beauty, truth, efficiency, logic, correctness and civility’.Footnote 3 Accordingly, the following article seeks to move beyond the outer layers of the discourse of character amnesia and to inquire into the deep-rooted and often unconscious motives at its core. What kind of forces led to the formation of such a discourse in the first place? What social functions might it serve, and what kinds of beliefs and anxieties regarding issues like national and cultural vitality can such a discourse reveal?
The discourse of character amnesia: origins and scope
The discourse surrounding the so-called phenomenon of character amnesia has been growing and expanding for several years. What follows presents some of the main variables of this international discourse, such as its origins and scope. While a comprehensive review of the spread and prevalence of character amnesia per se is beyond the scope of this article, it is, at the very least, essential to acknowledge that the phenomenon is indeed extremely common in both China and Japan, as has been illustrated by many empirical surveys.Footnote 4 Most of these empirical studies are flawed and limited in various ways, in terms of both reliability and validity; however, it is obvious that character amnesia is indeed something that virtually all users of Chinese characters (who rely on digital technology to some degree) have to deal with in one way or another. Accordingly, and though much more precise empirical research is needed, it is sufficient for the purposes of this article to reasonably conjecture that character amnesia affects a significant percentage of native and non-native speakers of Chinese and Japanese. More importantly, it is clear that regardless of its precise dimensions, character amnesia is regarded as an alarming phenomenon by many observers, as indicated by the discussion that follows.
‘Character amnesia’ as a concept in English gained popularity after the American Sinologist Victor H. Mair used it in a July 2010 entry entitled ‘Character Amnesia’ on the popular language blog ‘Language Log’.Footnote 5 The post also mentions a few notable articles in English that deal with the issue of native Chinese speakers’ declining ability to handwrite Chinese characters due to their increasing exposure to computers and mobile phones. One such article is a 2001 New York Times story by Jennifer 8. Lee entitled ‘In China, Computer Use Erodes Traditional Handwriting, Stirring a Cultural Debate’.Footnote 6 An English Wikipedia entry entitled ‘Character Amnesia’ was created about a year after Mair's post, which was soon linked to a Chinese Wikipedia entry (created in 2009) entitled ‘提笔忘字’ (tíbǐwàngzì).Footnote 7 While the English term ‘character amnesia’ is relatively new, the aforementioned Chinese equivalent—the idiom tibiwangzi (literally ‘pick up the brush and forget the characters’)—is at least a few decades old.Footnote 8 However, the Chinese part of the discourse that deals with this phenomenon directly only began to gain momentum during the late 2000s, reaching its peak in 2013, when newspapers and journals found themselves inundated with articles and academic studies relating to character amnesia.Footnote 9 At any rate, ‘character amnesia’ soon became the default translation for tibiwangzi, which has even been adopted by Chinese and Japanese writers who have written about this phenomenon in English.Footnote 10 Other, more literal, equivalents for ‘character amnesia’ exist in both Chinese and Japanese (such as 汉字健忘症/漢字健忘症), but are far less commonly used.Footnote 11
One major catalyst for the sudden upsurge of Chinese material related to character amnesia in 2013 was probably the appearance of two new Chinese television programmes: Heroes of Chinese Characters (汉字英雄) and the Chinese Characters Dictation Competition (中国汉字听写大会). Both of these shows unexpectedly became very popular—the latter, for example, was first broadcast on the relatively marginal channel CCTV-10, but was later moved to a prime-time slot on the flagship state television channel CCTV-1 on account of its growing popularity. They revolve around Chinese characters being dictated to school students of different ages, and can be seen as the result of the growing discourse surrounding the issue of character amnesia. Nonetheless, in and of themselves, these shows have also come to play an undoubtedly major role in the debate, given that many of the articles and papers pertaining to character amnesia from 2013 onwards were, to some extent, inspired by them.Footnote 12 Besides their obvious entertainment value, these shows offer a great deal of interesting (although somewhat flawed) empirical data. In Heroes of Chinese Characters, for instance, the ‘rate of knowledge among 1,000 people’ is displayed to the viewers whenever a contestant is given a rather difficult or rare character to handwrite. During the first episode, for example, a 17-year-old contestant managed to handwrite the character 谶 (chèn; prophecy, omen), after which the viewers were informed that only 25.5 per cent of the 1,000 people sampled were able to do so correctly.Footnote 13
Regarding the overtone of this part of the discourse, it is clear that most Chinese sources view character amnesia as a negative phenomenon. Many of them regard it as a cause—if not the cause—of a so-called ‘Chinese character crisis’ (汉字危机)Footnote 14 or even consider it as a crisis concerning Chinese language and culture as a whole.Footnote 15 In a similar vein, Chinese sources often refer to character amnesia as a ‘problem’ (问题),Footnote 16 an ‘embarrassment’ (尴尬),Footnote 17 or even a kind of a ‘common (or pervasive) illness’ (通病)Footnote 18 that one might ‘contract’ (罹患).Footnote 19 Some of the illustrations that accompany such sources eloquently convey this negativity. Their antagonism sometimes even borders on technophobia, given that some of these illustrations depict character amnesia as no less than a physical deformity, with such recurring themes as a ‘computer-head’ and ‘mouse-(or keyboard)-hands’.Footnote 20 As explained in more detail below, the overall negativity of the Chinese part of the discourse on character amnesia (which is by far the largest part of it) can also occasionally be related to forms of nationalism and ethnocentrism.
Character amnesia is also deeply entrenched among speakers of Japanese and is perhaps even more ingrained, as large parts of the Japanese population have been relying heavily on word processors since well before their Chinese counterparts.Footnote 21 However, it also seems that the Japanese sub-discourse pertaining to character amnesia is more limited and somewhat less anxious and negative. One indicator of this is linguistic: while the Chinese part of the discourse employs certain recurrent buzzwords in relation to character amnesia, such as tibiwangzi and or ‘computer agraphia’ (电脑失写症), it appears that the Japanese sub-discourse has yet to adopt a similarly popular catchphrase. Instead, most of the sources that deal with aspects of character amnesia employ more neutral and descriptive language, such as ‘declining kanji writing abilities’ (漢字書く力の低下)Footnote 22 or ‘can read but cannot write [kanji]’ (読めるけど、書けない).Footnote 23 Terms with more negative connotations such as ‘word-processor idiot’ (ワープロ馬鹿) or ‘smart-phone idiot’ (スマホ馬鹿) are used from time to time in relation to character amnesia in less formal sources (message boards, blogs, etc.), but are relatively rare. Even when such terms are used, they often reflect a humorous engagement with this phenomenon.Footnote 24 Many other Japanese sources take a similar amused tone regarding character amnesia. A good early example of this is a song released in 2000 by the musician Fujisawa Hideki—better known as Dance☆Man (ダンス☆マン)— entitled ‘Can read but can't write kanji’ (漢字読めるけど書けない). This song covers the famous 1980s song ‘It's Time to Party Now’ by Ray Parker Jr. and Raydio, but changes the lyrics to a whimsical set of complaints about the hardships of (hand)writing kanji (such as ‘as I tried to write a letter I noticed that I can't write “greetings” [挨拶] in kanji’).Footnote 25
Having said that, character amnesia also raises a fair amount of concern among some Japanese participants in this discourse. Consider, for example, a Yomiuri Shimbun column by Masuzoe Yōichi, a former governor of Tokyo, in which he writes that he is seized with ‘a sense of crisis’ (危機感) when confronted with his gradual forgetfulness of how to handwrite kanji due to his increasing reliance on his computer.Footnote 26 In another 2016 article, writer Odawara Hyōjō similarly claims that the ‘inability to write [even] simple kanji’ has become very common in Japan. Odawara further claims that this phenomenon is not new, and traces it back to the time when word processors first became popular in the country some 30 years ago. To Odawara, as well as to Masuzoe, computers, smartphones, and other such devices are indeed very convenient, useful, and suitable in some ways for educational purposes. However, Odawara warns, there is a ‘danger that lurks at the other side of digital convenience’.Footnote 27
As for the English-speaking part of this discourse, it seems that it is still in its infancy. Besides Mair's frequent and level-headed posts on the semi-academic Language Log blog, academic references to character amnesia are still scarce.Footnote 28 While popular English sources on character amnesia, such as newspaper articles, videos, or blog entries, are much more common than academic sources, they are also relatively limited. Googling the term ‘character amnesia’, for instance (as of 2 January 2017), only produces about 8,300 hits and out of these, many are totally irrelevant results that are concerned with fictional characters (as in people, not graphs) from the Japanese visual novel series and anime ‘Amnesia’.
From a substantive perspective, it seems that many participants in the English-speaking discourse tend to describe the phenomenon by rehashing Chinese sources and quotations—somewhat inaccurately at times—without contributing anything useful to the discussion, apart from the occasional pun or humorous remark. Some, however, do express more subjective—and mostly negative—attitudes towards this phenomenon. In her 2010 Los Angeles Times article, for example, Barbara Demick refers to the people who experience this ‘strange new form of illiteracy—or, more exactly, dysgraphia, the inability to write’ as ‘victims’.Footnote 29 By the same token, Chris Matyszczyk's Cnet article from the same year also presents character amnesia as a ‘serious problem’ that produces ‘victims’ and concludes, in an alarming tone, that ‘this amnesia might seem like a problem only for character-based languages, but I wonder whether they're the only victims. Surely you, too, have seen, say, the English language increasingly tortured by the uncertain hands of those who spend far too long touching keys rather than pens, books, or other humans’.Footnote 30
All in all, it is safe to conclude at this point that the international discourse regarding character amnesia in both East Asia and the English-speaking world is mostly negative, in the sense that it regards it as a problem or as a crisis that has to be dealt with. But why? The next sections elaborate on and assess some of the most common arguments posited by this discourse, as well as some of the solutions it suggests, and consider the possible, and often hidden forces, governing it. Before doing so, however, it is first worth identifying and defining some key theoretical terms that could improve our analysis of this issue.
Verbal hygiene vis-à-vis descriptivism, prescriptivism, and purism
At first glance, it might seem convenient to categorize the bulk of the discourse relating to character amnesia as language prescriptivism or even as language purism. However, such terms usually evoke problematic connotations. As Cameron maintains, ‘prescriptivism’ tends to be perceived by linguists as ‘negative’ in two important senses. The first sense of this ‘negative’ is the notion that prescriptivism—that is, attempting to change, impose, and/or enforce certain rules of ‘correct’ or ‘better’ usage regarding language—is simply wrong, as it is the product of ignorance and narrow-mindedness. In other words, the attitude of ‘“leave your language alone” suggests that language would be better off without the constant unwelcome attentions of its speakers’.Footnote 31 Another sense in which prescriptivism translates into a ‘negative’ for linguists, is that it stands for the other—and often deplorable—half of the duo ‘descriptivism/prescriptivism’. As Cameron relates, ‘the very first thing any student of linguistics learns is that “linguistics is descriptive not prescriptive” [. . .]. Prescriptivism thus represents the threatening Other, the forbidden; it is a spectre that haunts linguistics and a difference that defines linguistics.’Footnote 32
One serious problem with this kind of ‘anti-prescriptive’ attitude is that it falls into the same quagmire it so passionately criticizes: ‘The point is that both prescriptivism and anti-prescriptivism invoke certain norms and circulate particular notions about how language ought to work [. . .] on that level, “description” and “prescription” turn out to be aspects of a single (and normative) activity: a struggle to control language by defining its nature’.Footnote 33 In addition, it seems that many diehard ‘anti-prescriptivists’ overlook the point that relating to language as a ‘spontaneous’ or ‘natural’ product, which is better left alone, is problematic per se: where do they draw the line? What are the rules for defining certain changes in a language as ‘spontaneous’ or ‘natural’ (or ‘good’), while defining others as ‘artificial’ (or ‘corruptive’)? How do we measure the amount of ‘prescriptivism’ in a certain linguistic trend in order to decide if it is ‘grass-rooted’ and ‘spontaneous’ or ‘deliberated’ and ‘unnatural’?Footnote 34 Eventually, answers to such questions are always laden with substantial ideological baggage. Cameron stresses this point:
I have never met anyone who did not subscribe, in one way or another, to the belief that language can be ‘right’ or ‘wrong’, ‘good’ or ‘bad’, more or less ‘elegant’ or ‘effective’ or ‘appropriate’. Of course, there is massive disagreement about what values to espouse, and how to define them. Yet however people may pick and choose, it is rare to find anyone rejecting altogether the idea that there is some legitimate authority in language. We are all of us closet prescriptivists—or as I prefer to put it, verbal hygienists.Footnote 35
The term ‘language purism’ carries even stronger negative associations and is typically used as a pejorative term to label conservatives who wish to keep their language ‘pure’ from foreign influence (or ‘corruption’). As the Czech-Australian linguist J. V. Neustupný explains, there are many forms of ‘purism’ (such as purism that deals with ‘historical impurity’) but this ‘anti-foreign’ version is the most common one.Footnote 36 Accordingly, critiques of purism might succumb to a similar temptation to create a dichotomous world view of ‘purism’ as opposed to ‘anti-purism’ as ‘bad’ versus ‘good’. However, in as far as most of us are ‘closet prescriptivists’, we are also ‘closet purists’ in the sense that we choose, unconsciously at times, where to draw the line. Some, for instance, have no quarrel with the borrowing of foreign vocabulary (and might even scold the ‘purists’ and ‘conservatives’ who condemn this), but they may frown upon the assimilation of foreign grammatical patterns into their language.
This is exactly why the term ‘verbal hygiene’ is better suited for a clear-headed examination of different discourses concerning language, including our own case of the discourse relating to character amnesia. That is to say, instead of simply presenting this issue as another binary case of descriptivism versus prescriptivism (or of purism versus anti-purism), we can examine the plurality of opinions that constitute this discourse as an amalgamation of voices on the same continuum of verbal hygiene. Consequently, rather than merely asking ourselves whether the participants of this discourse should ‘prescribe’ or not, we can ‘attempt both to listen to what such people have to say, and to understand why they say the sorts of things they do’.Footnote 37 This is not to suggest that by acknowledging that verbal hygiene is something that almost everyone practises to some degree, and that deeper—political, moral and emotional—motives might very well be at play at such instances, we must also adopt an uncritical standpoint in this regard. Rather, examining such activities from the viewpoint of verbal hygiene enables us to evaluate these practices in a critical fashion with greater lucidity and coherence.
The historical-cultural continuity argument
The most common approach that leads to the negative portrayal of character amnesia is based on what we may dub the historical-cultural continuity argument. According to this line of reasoning—which appears mostly within the Chinese and English parts of the discourse—character amnesia is a serious problem because it disrupts an age-old practice: the handwriting of Chinese characters. Supporters of such a view often start or end their argument with a statement or two regarding the antiquity of Chinese characters and the continuity of their usage. ‘Thousands of years of continuous use!’ they enthusiastically inform us; ‘One of the most ancient writing systems in the world!’ they stress. They are also likely to highlight the fact that Chinese characters are one of the few ‘original’ scripts, alongside such other ancient writing systems as Sumerian Cuneiform script and the Mayan and Egyptian hieroglyphs. They may also add that, unlike those other ‘original’ scripts, Chinese characters have—against all the odds—survived through the ages, crossed language barriers, and are far from being relegated to the realms of palaeography and archaeology.Footnote 38 In short, such logic suggests that character amnesia has the negative potential to sever this historical continuity of Chinese characters and perhaps even lead to a dreaded Romanization of the script, as argued by Wang Yongmin and Yang Taoyuan.Footnote 39
But why is Romanization so appalling to them? It is because, as supporters of such arguments usually add, Chinese characters are an inseparable and important part of the ‘Chinese’ (or alternatively, the ‘Han’) culture. Some might even argue that Chinese characters are the most important part of this culture or at least the thing that has been holding it together for so long. Hence, the characters must be protected against such phenomena as character amnesia, which could erode the very essence of Chinese culture. Following this line of thought, Demick claims, for instance, that ‘in China, the situation [of character amnesia] rises to the level of a cultural crisis since the characters, more than any other facet of life, epitomize thousands of years of tradition’.Footnote 40 Rebecca Fu further notes in her 2012 article (which is a rare example of an academic source in English participating in this discourse) that if the Chinese fail to find a suitable solution for character amnesia they ‘will suffer greatly from the loss of one of the most conspicuous and essential symbols of their culture’.Footnote 41
In a similar vein, Wang and Yang claim that the Chinese characters are no less than the most important cultural heritage of Chinese civilization itself—the most foundational of its cornerstones. These so-called precious cultural treasures are now in great danger of ‘desertification’ and erosion in our ‘age of computers’ and, accordingly, the writers warn, ‘without Chinese characters there is no Chinese culture’. They also state that we must not adopt an attitude of indifference to this ‘desertification’ of Chinese character culture and that ‘in our present, in which human history has already entered the digital age, every single one of the descendants of the Fiery Emperor and Yellow Emperor [炎黄子孙] with a sense of responsibility has the duty to pass on, develop and promote the Chinese characters culture’.Footnote 42 Xu Chengning goes so far as to assert (in this context of character amnesia) that Chinese characters are ‘the Chinese people's [中华民族] biggest contribution to the development of global civilization’.Footnote 43 Similar claims abound within the Chinese part of the discourse.Footnote 44
As we turn to a critical examination, it is easy enough to see that although the historical-cultural continuity argument is the most common one employed in the discourse of character amnesia, it is also the flimsiest. It has several weaknesses. First, as shown above, many claim that character amnesia is a problem since it harms thousands of years of historical and/or cultural continuity embodied in the handwriting of Chinese characters. While it is certainly true that Chinese characters have ancient roots and that they have survived through the centuries, it is not clear why such facts matter in the context of character amnesia. Slavery too was a very old and well-established cultural practice in China and so was foot-binding. In short, the amount of time that a certain ideology or a cultural habit has existed continuously is not necessarily connected with its morality and desirability. The fact that something is, and has been done for a long time, does not necessarily mean that it should or should not continue to be done.Footnote 45
The second shortcoming of this argument is that its alleged continuity is far more complex and fragmented than appearances may suggest. As it happens, almost every aspect of Chinese characters has undergone many transformations. Their political and cultural roles, shapes, styles, meanings, sounds, and even their conventional writing methods—all of these have changed radically over time.Footnote 46 In fact, early characters have been so drastically transformed that the vast majority of native Chinese and Japanese speakers would not even be able to recognize many of the earliest forms of common Chinese characters, to say nothing of their ability to read calligraphy written in the various cursive styles, which itself requires specialized training.Footnote 47
Thirdly, it is far from clear why so many proponents of this argument believe that character amnesia puts the Chinese characters themselves, and even the languages that use them in their scripts, at a risk of historical and cultural discontinuity.Footnote 48 Does it really matter that much if people cannot write certain Chinese characters by hand any more as well as they used to (assuming they can still write them digitally, of course)?Footnote 49 As a matter of fact, present-day Chinese and Japanese speakers are writing and reading more than ever, and literacy rates—especially in the PRC—have drastically increased in the last few decades. Moreover, and thanks to computers, people are actually using more Chinese characters, not fewer.Footnote 50 For example, a given person might experience character amnesia if they attempted to handwrite Japanese words such as 色艶 (complexion) or 憂鬱 (depression) in kanji without the aid of a digital device. Of course, our hypothetical writer could still handwrite them using the syllabic hiragana or katakana or even rōmaji (Romanized Japanese), which is exactly what most Japanese people have been doing thus far or, alternatively, writing such words in a mixed fashion, such as 憂うつ instead of 憂鬱.Footnote 51 However, as it has become easier to write even the rarest and most complicated kanji with digital technology, many ‘difficult’ characters such as 艶 or 鬱 have gradually been resurrected and are observed far more frequently in different publications as well as in personal communications (text message, email, Line, etc.).
It is hardly surprising, then, that in 2010 the Japanese Ministry of Education added another 196 (but removed five) characters to the official list of Jōyō kanji (常用漢字; Chinese characters for common use), thereby increasing the total number of kanji that are considered ‘common’ and taught in schools to 2,136 (the aforementioned ‘difficult’ 艶 and 鬱 are now among them). Another list—the Jinmeiyō kanji (人名用漢字; Chinese characters for use in personal names)—contains an additional 843 kanji that are considered less common, but can still be legally used in registered Japanese personal names, and is maintained by the Ministry of Justice.Footnote 52 It is not uncommon, however, to come across kanji that are not included in any of these lists in books and other texts, once again thanks to the ease of typing them. It would certainly not surprise me if the Jōyō kanji list continues to grow in the future, since, for instance, it is still possible to observe in contemporary texts many words like 頷く (to nod), 皺 (wrinkle), 躊躇 (hesitation), 嘔吐 (vomit), 噓 (lie), 搔く (to scratch), 眩しい (dazzling), and 叩く (to beat) which all contain characters that do not feature in the aforementioned lists and are often included without superimposed readings (furigana or ‘rubi characters’).Footnote 53 In a similar vein, the Chinese government has also recently (in 2013) increased the number of items in its ‘list of Standard Chinese Characters for common use’ (通用规范汉字表) from 7,000 to 8,105.Footnote 54
Claims regarding the alleged risks of historical discontinuity seem even stranger if we turn our gaze back a century or so in time. After all, it was not too long ago that Chinese characters made the use of many modern communication technologies—including typewriters, telegraphs, and the first computers—slower and much more cumbersome.Footnote 55 In addition, during that time, illiteracy was still a serious problem, especially in China, and many theorists regarded Chinese characters as the chief culprits. Eventually, numerous calls for reform, and even suggestions that Chinese characters should be abolished—that is, be replaced with a phonetic script—came into vogue in both China and Japan.Footnote 56 In China, for instance, many distinguished cultural and political leaders who emerged during and after the May Fourth Movement (1919) adopted such a mindset regarding Chinese characters. The intellectual Qu Qiubai—one of early leaders of the Communist Party of China, as well as a developer of the obsolete ‘Latinxua Sin Wenz’ Romanization system for Mandarin (together with the Russian linguist V. S. Kolokolov)—asserted, for example, that ‘the Chinese characters are truly the world's filthiest, nastiest, most wretched medieval latrine’.Footnote 57 Similarly, Lu Xun—the wildly acclaimed and perhaps best-known modern Chinese writer—endorsed the abolishment of the Chinese characters:
Indeed, the Chinese characters are treasures we inherited from ancient times, but our ancestors are by far older than the Chinese characters, hence, we are even older treasures ourselves. Should we sacrifice ourselves for the sake of the Chinese characters or should we sacrifice the Chinese characters for our own sake? Everyone who is not yet completely crazy is capable of answering this right away.Footnote 58
Even Mao Zedong, who was an ardent fan of Lu Xun, supported similar notions and declared in 1951 that ‘the written language must be reformed; we must proceed in the direction of the phoneticization being taken by all languages of the world’.Footnote 59 And indeed, the simplification of the Chinese characters in the PRC soon followed.Footnote 60 Many hoped (or feared) that this direction would eventually lead to the full-scale Romanization (or some other kind of phoneticization) of the written language. In the end, however, such plans were laid to rest, one reason being, perhaps, that newer technological developments (unlike the typewriter and the telegraph) ultimately made it easier than ever to use Chinese characters, even when compared to handwriting. In short, and as the linguist David Moser has recently asserted, it seems that ‘informational technology has saved Chinese characters’ and not the other way around, as some alarmist proponents of this discourse seem to suggest.Footnote 61
Accordingly, it may be argued that the adoption of the so-called historical-cultural rhetoric by many verbal hygienists from within the discourse of character amnesia masks deeper political ideologies and anxieties pertaining to national (dis)unity. Some verbal hygienists may even claim that phenomena such as character amnesia weaken Chinese national identity since Chinese characters are not only a tool for recording language, but are, rather, an important means of ‘harmonizing’ different ethnic groups within one nation. For example, Yuan Guiren, China's former minister of education (2009–2016), stated, inter alia, that: ‘[. . .] educating students to [hand]write Chinese characters properly is beneficial for the cultivation of their feelings, the nurturing of their aesthetic capabilities, the strengthening [of] their admiration towards the motherland's language and script, for their comprehension of the traditional culture . . .’ and so forth.Footnote 62
In addition, it appears that such arguments concerning national and cultural vitality often go hand in hand with attitudes of aversion towards foreign influence on the language, including internet and mobile phone slang. Zheng Kechun, for instance, suggests a few factors that have led to this so-called ‘crisis of Chinese characters’ besides character amnesia, including the wide diffusion of internet slang and emojis. Zheng mentions, among other examples, the words ‘88’ (slang for ‘bye-bye’; 拜拜) and BF (short for boyfriend) as symptomatic of such undesirable developments.Footnote 63 The former spokesman of the Chinese Ministry of Education Wang Xuming is another case in point. Wang often argues on different platforms that schools in China should focus less on English and other foreign languages, and allocate more time for studying Chinese and Chinese characters, especially because of the ‘Chinese character crisis’. He is even quoted as suggesting the complete cancellation of English classes at primary schools in order to ‘liberate the children and save the Chinese language!’Footnote 64 In their 2006 article on character amnesia, the aforementioned Wang Yongmin and Yang Taoyuan go as far as to claim that China must constantly strengthen its population's approval and adoration of Chinese characters in light of the menace of Western ‘cultural hegemony’. It is therefore imperative, they argue, to eliminate any remains of the ‘out-dated’ and ‘mistaken’ theories offered in support of Romanization.Footnote 65
The self-cultivation argument
Many verbal hygienists of this discourse also tend to assume that handwriting Chinese characters improves the writer's disposition or, alternatively, that writing via digital means deprives the writer of some essential, positive virtues that can only be achieved by the constant practice and cultivation of handwriting. In other words, far from dealing with the ‘correctness’ of the language and with its ‘proper’ orthographic representations, this argument seeks to tackle moral issues of a higher order: handwriting Chinese characters makes the writer a better person, in general, and a better Chinese or Japanese person, in particular. Accordingly, the inability to handwrite such characters correctly may reflect badly on the character of the writers themselves.
Such phenomena as character amnesia are troubling, according to Xu Yanping, because they exert an indirect, negative influence on the students’ skills of rational thinking, emotional expressiveness, and creativity.Footnote 66 In a similar fashion, Odawara Hyōjō warns that forgetting (how to handwrite) certain kanji is not only a matter of forgetting a specific piece of knowledge, but is, rather, a development that may cause the quality of a person's thinking process to deteriorate.Footnote 67 Qiu Weiting also claims that according to some psychological and physiological studies (no precise sources are cited), practising handwriting is crucial for forming favourable behaviour, cultivating thought, and for training physical and mental abilities. This, Qiu argues, ‘is something that the computer is incapable of replacing’.Footnote 68 A 2012 Yomiuri Shimbun article similarly claims that the repeated practice of handwriting kanji strengthens vision, touch, and kinaesthesia, and that this practice is also effective for the invigoration of brainpower. Accordingly, it advises, ‘it is essential that children be taught the importance of handwriting both at home and at the classroom’.Footnote 69 Likewise, Du Yangyang and Zhang Wenjing assert that unlike writing via digital means, handwriting not only leaves a strong imprint on the brain's language centre, but it is also important for maintaining and cultivating willpower, endurance, and perseverance, as well as for stabilizing the nervous system.Footnote 70
While the historical-cultural continuity argument is occasionally paired with somewhat xenophobic dispositions, the self-cultivation argument tends to get mixed up with a modicum of technophobia, as indicated by some of the demonizing illustrations discussed above. It is important to note, however, that most of the participants in this discourse are not technophobes in the full sense of the word. Many of them perfectly acknowledge the many benefits digital technology has brought to the field of writing (i.e. making the writing process much more economical and faster, facilitating easier revisions, and so forth). These points notwithstanding, they still suggest that character amnesia is a negative concomitant of modern technologies that ought to be ‘cured’.
There are several shortcomings with this argument as well, the first and foremost being that the allegedly scientific proof for the superiority of handwriting over other types of writing is questionable, to say the least. As writer Anne Trubek sums up, ‘there is no convincing empirical evidence that handwriting is cognitively superior to keyboarding, although some make that claim’.Footnote 71 Furthermore, even if we assume that handwriting is ‘superior’ to typing in some ways, we still have to consider this while bearing in mind all of the advantages and disadvantages that both handwriting and typing have to offer. The technology that people have been using to write Chinese characters, for instance, has changed significantly through the ages, from the knives used to engrave characters on bones, tortoiseshells, stones, and bronze, to brushes and ink for writing on silk, bamboo, and—finally—paper. (Note that in the case of bamboo, knives were still used as erasers.) Eventually pens and pencils followed. These technologies imposed—or, better yet, enabled—major changes to the writing and reading processes. For example, the development of the spontaneous and unruly cursive styles (草書) as well as the semi-cursive (行書) styles of handwriting were only made possible due to the new technology at hand—brushes, bamboo strips, and/or paper. Just imagine how hard and ineffective it must be to handwrite—or, more accurately ‘hand-engrave’—modern Chinese or Japanese characters in cursive script on bones with knives. Put differently, the technologies of writing with knives on bones or bronze were indeed important advancements. However, the technological barriers of the old methods also became clear once superior technologies (in terms of convenience and utility) became commonplace.
It should be noted at this point, however, that, like any other writing technology, digital writing technology exerts its own unique effects on its users and their texts, which different observers condemn or laud according to their own points of view. Linguist Dennis Baron suggests, for example, that digital writing technology helps us to focus on the text itself and on its meanings, rather than on the mere technicalities of how to write or spell a certain word.Footnote 72 Turbek agrees with this notion and adds that ‘typing clearly has a democratizing effect, removing unconscious bias against students with poor handwriting, and levelling the look of prose to allow expression of ideas, not the rendering of letters to take center stage’.Footnote 73 On the other hand, and as we have already seen above, many observers view the advent of digital writing technology with different amounts of negativity and caution, and would be likely to regard Baron's and Turbek's statements with scepticism, to say the least.Footnote 74 Critic Philip Hensher even goes as far as claiming that ‘though it would make no sense to give up the clarity and authority of print which is available to anyone with a keyboard, to continue to diminish the place of the handwritten in our lives is to diminish, in a small but real way, our humanity’.Footnote 75
The aesthetic argument
For many observers, Chinese characters possess an appealing elegance but also a variety of other elusive qualities, as suggested by the following text:
The Chinese character is like a song, like a painting, like a dream, like an illusion. The beauty of its shape, the beauty of its structure, the beauty of its inner meaning and the beauty of its rhythm are all unique and unrivalled in this world . . . Thanks to our fine Chinese characters, [. . .] we have become an unrivalled calligraphic power. We do not have any reason not to treasure our Chinese characters!Footnote 76
Accordingly, another common line of reasoning verbal hygienists often utilize to label character amnesia as a ‘problem’ or a ‘crisis’ has to do with such ideals of beauty. That is, they might say that compared to typing, handwriting Chinese characters produces results that are aesthetically superior and better linked to the subtle beauty of the characters. Hence, when people forget how to handwrite ‘properly’ and/or choose to type instead of handwrite, they are producing aesthetically inferior texts. Their aesthetic sense per se might also degenerate as a result.Footnote 77 But in the end, is it not just a matter of taste and personal preference? Others can similarly argue that it is possible to produce texts in Chinese characters using digital technologies that are aesthetically superior to handwritten texts. Indeed, one can utilize a nearly endless variety of fonts when typing in Chinese characters, including those that are based on the handwriting of the greatest calligraphers of all time—and all of this with just a few effortless clicks.
The sentimental bedrock
As we have seen, arguments regarding character amnesia as a negative phenomenon—flawed though they may be—are very common within the discourse, and usually involve deep-rooted motives and political, nationalistic, moral, and even aesthetic concerns. However, it can be argued that the most significant forces at play here are ultimately linked to lingering personal sentiments and attachments to the act of handwriting Chinese characters. After all, Chinese and Japanese speakers have invested huge amounts of time in practising how to handwrite Chinese characters throughout their education, and no doubt now feel annoyed and even ashamed in the face of their so-called character amnesia. To be sure, social norms in China and Japan still dictate that good handwriting is a must for educated adults,Footnote 78 and some may even argue that the characters mirror the writer (字如其人) in some meaningful, yet elusive way. Those who harbour such emotional attachments to Chinese characters often express them via such highly subjective and fuzzy terms as ‘magic’ and ‘mystery’. In his 2012 book Chinese Characters, for instance, Han Jiantang refers to the ‘profound mystery’ of Chinese characters and to how they have ‘mysteriously endured’ through the ages.Footnote 79
Furthermore, people are not inclined to easily give up their relative advantages. Indeed, the prevailing majority of speakers of Chinese and Japanese have made such a large investment (of at least 12 years on average) in learning how to handwrite the characters that they simply do not want to see it as time wasted. Moreover, they might feel that handwriting Chinese characters has become a part of their identity—a part which, to their dismay, is gradually fading away, due to the emergence of new and essential technological innovations. This seems, in other words, to be a classic case of ‘cultural lag’, a situation in which, according to sociologist Ann Swidler, ‘people do not readily take advantage of new structural opportunities which would require them to abandon established ways of life. This is not because they cling to cultural values, but because they are reluctant to abandon familiar strategies of action for which they have the cultural equipment.’Footnote 80 In a similar vein Cameron argues that ‘one of the most important factors producing language conservatism [. . .] must surely be the long apprenticeship served by speakers, and more especially by writers. [. . .] mastering any complex and difficult craft gives you inbuilt incentive to defend its practices’.Footnote 81 Accordingly, such deep-rooted and often unconscious attachments to the ‘complex and difficult craft’ of handwriting Chinese characters are perhaps the strongest catalyst behind this discourse of character amnesia. As we have seen, the verbal hygienists of this discourse indeed arm themselves with other arguments of various kinds. However, when all is said and done, it might just be that for them, handwriting Chinese characters simply ‘feels good’ on a very personal and visceral level.Footnote 82
Concluding remarks: ‘curing’ character amnesia?
As this article demonstrates, the phenomenon of character amnesia has given rise to various cultural anxieties and is often considered a problem, a crisis, an embarrassment, or even a ‘social disease’.Footnote 83 Consequently, various suggestions for solutions—or ‘cures’—are advocated by the verbal hygienists of this discourse. As one might expect, the most common solution they tend to offer is simply devoting more time to practising handwriting and less to electronic devices such as smartphones and computers. Some also recommend the cultivation of such long-term habits as handwriting letters, keeping a handwritten diary, and taking notes by hand.Footnote 84 A prominent example of government efforts in this direction is the Chinese Communist Party's recent effort to encourage its many millions of members to handwrite the Party's 15,000-character constitution.Footnote 85
Another possible solution that many endorse is practising calligraphy. According to a 2013 AFP news agency video report entitled ‘In Asia, ancient writing collides with digital age’, which deals with character amnesia in China, Hong Kong, and Japan, calligraphy has recently become a compulsory lesson in both primary and secondary schools across China. In this video, one of the interviewees—a Hong Kong resident named Rebecca Ko—relates how she has been sending her daughter to calligraphy lessons for some eight years and maintains that ‘we cannot rely too much on computers, we should be able to write and write neatly, it's a basic thing about being Chinese’. The video concludes by stating that due to the aforementioned obligatory calligraphy lessons, and regardless of new technologies, ‘generations of Chinese will still get to experience the joys of learning to write their language’. Ironically, as the narrator utters these words, the video shows us a young girl practising the handwriting of Chinese characters, while suppressing a huge yawn.Footnote 86
New digital technology may offer another remedy for certain observers, somewhat akin to ‘fighting fire with fire’. One recurrent suggestion in this regard, for instance, is switching from a phonetic IME to a shape-based IME such as Wubi (五笔字型输入法) or even getting used to inputting Chinese characters via the handwriting recognition options some of the IME provide. Such alternative IME are considered effective in fighting—and perhaps ‘curing’—character amnesia, according to some, since the user has to constantly rely on the characters’ shape and correct stroke order in order to type them.Footnote 87 But is this not tantamount to jumping out of the frying pan and into the fire? Despite the possible advantages of such shape-based IME, like the eventual speed of typing,Footnote 88 one of their obvious disadvantages is the massive amounts of time and effort that is required for memorizing and mastering their complicated, and often unique, modi operandi. Bear in mind that these memorization efforts are required over and above the memorization of the characters themselves (the user first needs to know how to write each character ‘correctly’, and then how to deconstruct them into strokes or radicals in order to use these IME effectively). Above all, the numbers speak for themselves: the vast majority of native Chinese speakers in mainland China choose to use phonetic IME over shape-based IME for reasons of convenience,Footnote 89 and virtually all speakers of Japanese—who almost always need to write in ‘mixed script’, using both kanji and kana (a collective term for the hiragana and katakana syllabaries)—use phonetic input systems.Footnote 90
Finally, however, the best ‘solution’ for character amnesia is perhaps its acceptance. It goes without saying that if a person expresses strong positive feelings in favour of the practice of handwriting, they are certainly more than capable of practising it as a habit, or as a method for assuaging their own personal frustrations with character amnesia. But insisting on years of obligatory calligraphy lessons for children, or requiring that university students submit long papers written by hand,Footnote 91 seem disproportionate. After all, technological habits are bound to change over time, especially when new technologies offer unarguably better solutions to the task at hand (such as the shift from bones, stone, and bronze to ink and paper, or the shift from handwriting to digital writing). As sociolinguist Nanette Gottlieb asserts in this regard, it is apparent that ‘the technology is well and truly here to stay’ and that alongside the undeniable decline in the ability to write by hand, the ‘time for a rethink had clearly arrived’.Footnote 92 Thus, trying to force people to shun these new technologies and their advantages on account of a certain party's personal taste and preference, and adhering instead to older and more romantic technologies, is probably tantamount, in the long run, to tilting at windmills. Moreover, in a few decades from now, we will probably be much closer to a ‘paperless world’, making handwriting even less important, especially if we consider the advanced voice-recognition capabilities computers already possess. Social norms may also gradually change towards a greater acceptance of character amnesia as a non-negative reality. Once this transitory stage ends, the fear of character amnesia, as well as the term itself, is likely to be water under the proverbial bridge.
