So Ma Yingjiu supports simplified characters for Taiwan?

[quote]We don’t want to use simplified Chinese because we don’t want to be forced to use what the Chinese are using.
[/quote]
Good news for the rest of us then. The Chinese are breathing air!

More on the issue in Taiwan Today:

[quote]President Ma Ying-jeou said June 19 that his proposal to recognize traditional Chinese characters while writing simplified forms was aimed at mainland China, not Taiwan.

In a speech delivered at the opening of the Sixth International Conference on Internet Chinese Education in Taipei, Ma stressed he had long been “deeply passionate” about traditional Chinese characters and was misconstrued as espousing Taiwan adopt the simplified Chinese form.

He reiterated that this was a major misunderstanding, and given Chinese language instruction in Taiwan had always been taught using traditional characters, there was no question of change. The president said his idea, which applies to overseas Chinese schools, was aimed at Chinese mainland scholars and hoped more mainlanders would learn to recognize traditional forms.

The president believes advocating the use of traditional Chinese characters is not a matter of engaging in one-upmanship with the Chinese mainland. More and more people on the mainland view this issue from purely a cultural perspective, Ma said.

Citing mainland author Wang Gan, the president said the writer feels that simplified characters are “knock-off” versions of Chinese characters, because the simplified versions are “non-mainstream, crude and only have economic utility.”

Ma said he discovered recently that mainland scholars have advocated “recognizing traditional and writing simplified” forms, and hoped that when teaching elementary students simplified characters, comparison tables of traditional vs. simplified forms could be included in textbooks to help children recognize traditional forms. (FS-JSM)

(This article first appeared in the “United Daily News” June 20, 2009)

[/quote]
http://taiwantoday.tw/ct.asp?xItem=53193&CtNode=419

Also the China Post -though explained in their unmistakeable style:
http://www.chinapost.com.tw/taiwan/national/national-news/2009/06/20/212940/Ma-dispels.htm

[quote]President Ma Ying-jeou said June 19 that his proposal to recognize traditional Chinese characters while writing simplified forms was aimed at mainland China, not Taiwan.

In a speech delivered at the opening of the Sixth International Conference on Internet Chinese Education in Taipei, Ma stressed he had long been “deeply passionate” about traditional Chinese characters and was misconstrued as espousing Taiwan adopt the simplified Chinese form.

He reiterated that this was a major misunderstanding[/quote]
As I noted the same day the halfwit Taiwanese “media” “reported” on the story.

[quote=“sandman”][quote]President Ma Ying-jeou said June 19 that his proposal to recognize traditional Chinese characters while writing simplified forms was aimed at mainland China, not Taiwan.

In a speech delivered at the opening of the Sixth International Conference on Internet Chinese Education in Taipei, Ma stressed he had long been “deeply passionate” about traditional Chinese characters and was misconstrued as espousing Taiwan adopt the simplified Chinese form.

He reiterated that this was a major misunderstanding[/quote]
As I noted the same day the halfwit Taiwanese “media” “reported” on the story.[/quote]

You are so gullible. :wink:

How was that again:

Never let the facts get between you and a good story…

Sigh

[quote=“sandman”][quote]We don’t want to use simplified Chinese because we don’t want to be forced to use what the Chinese are using.
[/quote]
Good news for the rest of us then. The Chinese are breathing air![/quote]

They’re actually breathing quite an exotic mixture of industrial chemicals to be exact.

I am beginning to wonder if Ma is as intelligent as he is made out to be. Anyone in the KMT with a titter of wit would never even mention simplified characters. Ever. Simple as that. He does seems to suffer from a strange form of Foot-in-Mouth disease. Traditional characters seem to me to be the only cultural thing that Taiwanese from both the baby slaughtering commie-lovin’ KMT side and the the cute and cuddly, Ah-Bian worshipping, mentally deranged and permanently opressed DPP side, seem to give a shit about. After all, most other things that pass as “Taiwanese culture” are related to money and interest in them is directly proportional to how much money they generate or are perceived to generate. So this makes Ma doubly stupid. Oh yes, and the fact that it takes 15 minutes to learn simplified Chinese, therefore making the whole issue irrelevant for any literate traditional character user.

Nonsense. It takes a full afternoon.