We have much to gain and nothing to lose by teaching simplified Chinese to our primary, secondary and university students.

In my generation, folks flocked to learn Japanese or French, hoping to find a job in a Japanese or French company based in Hong Kong. Today's Hong Kong is drastically different. Our economy is intertwined with the mainland economy. Working for a mainland company operating in Hong Kong is not a bad idea now. There are also many job opportunities north of the Shenzhen River. Job applicants who know how to read and write simplified Chinese undoubtedly enjoy an edge over those who don't.

We should not be short-sighted or blinded by the politicization of the (simplified Chinese) language issue. Hong Kong today is over-politicized. Some publicity-hungry politicians and "localists", some of whom promote "Hong Kong independence", capitalize on every opportunity to attack Beijing. Hong Kong people should keep their cool and look at learning simplified Chinese from a pragmatic perspective.

Simplified Chinese is simply one version of the Chinese scripts. If our children start to learn it when they are young, the benefits are manifold. First, they can take notes much faster using simplified Chinese which might help them get better grades in school. Also, they can upgrade their Chinese-writing abilities if they read more books in simplified Chinese. Second, they can understand mainland political and social issues more conveniently. As China has emerged as the second most powerful country, economically speaking, in the world, young people in Hong Kong can no longer afford to be ignorant about the goings-on on the mainland. Third, understanding simplified Chinese can help young people find jobs, either in Hong Kong or on the mainland. That's a given.

Detractors argue that our young will be brainwashed by Beijing if they learn simplified Chinese. That is ridiculous. We learn Japanese. Have we been brainwashed by the Tokyo government? We learn English. Have we been brainwashed by the US or British governments? Of course not. The charge is politically motivated, scare-mongering rhetoric, intending to bring a language issue to the political level. Hong Kong people should not be fooled by the cynics.

Knowing simplified Chinese has changed my life (and many others', I believe).

I was lucky. I have known simplified Chinese since I was in Primary 4 or 5 - because I needed to write letters for my mother to her relatives in Jiangmen, Guangdong province. I also read their letters (in simplified Chinese of course) to my mother. It was like a weekly assignment for me. I self-learned, beginning with a lot of guesswork. But I triumphed. Knowing simplified characters gave me a competitive advantage. I scored a B in the school certificate examination (taken by all high-school leavers in those days) and an A in the Chinese University of Hong Kong (CUHK) entrance examination. When I graduated from CUHK I obtained a job as a reporter for the Wall Street Journal, partly because I knew simplified Chinese and spoke Putonghua.

Educators in the city and Hong Kong government officials are well-advised to initiate teaching simplified Chinese in our primary and secondary schools as soon as possible. They should turn a deaf ear to those politicized decrying noises. Parents should also voice their support to have simplified Chinese in their children's school curriculum. Traditional Chinese remains the medium of instruction as our young people need to know our thousands of years of Chinese history and culture. But we can teach simplified Chinese as an elective course. As I said earlier, we have much to gain and nothing to lose by teaching simplified Chinese to our young students.

(HK Edition 03/02/2016 page10)