Simplified Beyond Sense: The Travesty of Modern Chinese Writing

Modern Chinese simplified a language that had been in use for thousands of years, rendering some characters nonsensical or even contradictory.
Simplified Beyond Sense: The Travesty of Modern Chinese Writing
Mark Ralstone/AFP/GettyImages
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Heartless love, depopulated villages. Flying with one wing, falling into a well—we are told this is “progress.”

The above may sound like opening lines to stories about calamities or Kafkaesque dystopias, but they are in fact all valid and perhaps unavoidable interpretations of modern Chinese writing.

Classical Chinese calligraphy penned by an 8th century Japanese empress. (Wikimedia Commons)
Classical Chinese calligraphy penned by an 8th century Japanese empress. Wikimedia Commons