As you likely know, Chinese writing comes in two main forms: traditional (fántǐzì) and simplified (jiǎntǐzì). Taiwan uses traditional characters and China uses simplified characters. Taiwan is a peace-loving democracy and China is an authoritarian state; ergo – traditional characters are better!

But no, logic doesn’t care about politics and as John and Eryk debate this sometimes-controversial topic, you may come to agree with us that there are pluses and minuses for both systems. Eryk likes writing his wife’s surname as 刘, not 劉… but John has a point about beauty – did they really need to do this 东 to “east”? Was the original, 東, really oh, sooo hard?

Enjoy a friendly argument or two, and learn a bit of the history of characters and the people who simplified them.

PS: if you want to know more about Hanyu Pinyin, listen to our Bookish Asia podcast episode where John chats with an author of a book on Zhou Youguang (周有光).

15. Success and Failure - Coach Josh