President Ma Ying-jeou (馬英九) yesterday lauded the Overseas Compatriot Affairs Commission (OCAC) for juxtaposing traditional and simplified Chinese in its textbooks for schools for overseas Taiwanese.
Ma said the two sides of the Taiwan Strait use different Chinese characters, with Taiwan using traditional and China simplified.
Taipei and Beijing have yet to reach an agreement on the teaching of traditional and simplified Chinese characters at schools for overseas Taiwanese and Chinese, he said, but the situation is changing.
“I find it very interesting and meaningful that the [commission] has placed traditional and simplified Chinese characters in its textbooks this year,” Ma said.
“Most people in Taiwan and Hong Kong know traditional Chinese characters and are used to them. Now the problem [recognizing/understanding traditional and simplified Chinese] has been solved by putting them together,” he said.
Ma made the remarks in a meeting with overseas Taiwanese residing in Asia at the Presidential Office yesterday morning.
Ma urged overseas compatriots associations to observe a “truce on expatriate affairs” because he hoped that Chinese “from the mainland and Chinese from Taiwan can all get along and help each other, so we will not be ridiculed by foreigners.”
Ma said that while he realized the goal could not be achieved overnight, both sides could find the answer to the question with the collective wisdom of the “Chinese nation.”
Ma said he was concerned whether Chinese living in China and overseas could read traditional Chinese characters.
“Academics from the mainland said many young people now read traditional Chinese because they listen to Jay Chou’s [周杰倫] songs so much that they just learn it like that,” he said.
Many people in Singapore and Malaysia also learned Mandarin by watching Taiwanese TV programs, he said, and many Chinese living in North America watch Taiwanese political programs more frequently than those living in Taiwan.
“It is a good thing to see a common language bridge the gap between Chinese around the world through modern technology,” he said.
Ma caught the ire of lawmakers across the political spectrum in June last year when he expressed the hope that Taipei and Beijing could reach an agreement on the teaching of traditional and simplified Chinese characters at schools for overseas Taiwanese and Chinese, so that students would be taught to read traditional characters and write simplified characters.
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