bonjour mes amis, not too interesting of a week to mention— but i’m really trying to enjoy the last few weeks of summer— but lemme tell you, I’ve enjoyed my summer indeed.

despite some boringness at work.. it’s been great, good times, good weather, good friends, and most of all, no important worries— that’s the big one. well.. there are worries, but seriously, they are in the back burner and are things that would be nice to have “resolved”, but really, i’m happy regardless— so knock on wood— i’m happy.

Jen, Eug, Mar, Bow and I went to have Shanghainese food on Saturday, which was quite delectable— and pretty darn cheap for Shanghainese food. Anyway, Eugene used the excuse of tiredness to go downtown and drop some stuff off for a buddy of his— but we won’t buy that eugene.. but don’t worry, we’ll forgive you when you treat us all to dinner. ;) ;)

so yes… off to downtown we went… which was fun indeed. we went to Nathan Phillips Square, stared at the beautiful view and chatted quite a while— til 12.30… but on our way there, I bumped into my sister on Queen Street— talk about coincidence.. she was going clubbing with her RyeHigh friends— anyway, great night— oh yeah….. Jenn gave me a passionate kiss… i asked Jenn to do me in the back seat— but that wasn’t happening.. but i must persevere!!!

Sunday, I went shopping with Mark and Eric… disappointing fall line (esp AE), disappointing— wow, seriously, Markville is McGiviney— oh good old highschool.

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Okay back to the Simplified-Traditional Debate— first of all, thanks for all your comments, I really appreciate them. I really enjoy these forums.

So yes, I still believe that Simplified Chinese is unnecessary. Perhaps Jenn is right, I’m biased— I’ve never been too exposed nor did I receive any Simplified Chinese education, but in my opinion some characters seem unproportioned— or “ugly” as eugene puts it— I think “unproportioned” speaks much better in this context.

And perhaps Leo is right saying that it has raised literacy levels. I’m not sure. But Simplified Chinese is simply Chinese-shortform— that’s all it is (no duh). They still continue to use those funny looking things beside the character for pinyin (or pronunciation). So I’m not sure how Simplified Chinese is making people read more effectively— maybe someone can educate me on this one.

But if the whole point of Simplified Chinese is simply that it is “less to write,” the question is, is it necessary? Yes, it is more efficient but is it soo important so that the entire country have to simply covert to this new form? Yes, HK and Taiwanese people surely use a quasi-simplifed-chinese in everyday writing, especially when they write so “leew” (or “cursive”)— i think that is completely acceptable and okay, but we should not deliberately change formal writing — it is like saying “LOL” is acceptable in current formal essays.
Maybe Canada should make a law to eliminate all short-sounded-vowels in writing— that definitely would save us time. But why change for the sake of change?

Chinese is a beautiful language (in writing :D ) and it is fine the way it is (well, not that I know a lot, lol). The Qin Dynasty contributed greatly to unite the once many forms of the Chinese written language. It brought the Chinese people together. Language is an important emblem for one’s culture, but through Simplifed Chinese, we are doing the reverse— continuing this growing separation of the Mainlanders and the others.

This is Matt signing off.
God made me special.