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December 31, 2006 (Sunday) － Issue No. 82 |
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Simplification
of Chinese Characters by the Chinese Communist Party |
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Eight-Year-Old
Girl Baby-Sits Her Brother at School |
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CCP
Verdict Aimed at Silencing Gao Before Olympics |
| Criticism
on China's Think Tanks Articles published in Beijing's newspapers criticized China's think tanks because they cannot march to the beat of a different drum. The public also has no freedom to voice its opinion regarding authorities' decision-making....…Full Article |
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Driver Suspected of Intentionally Killing 7-Year-Old Boy Witnesses suspect the driver intentionally crushed and killed a boy to avoid paying a large injury compensation. This was the second incident of suspected intentional killing of a child involving a vehicle accident within a week......…Full Article |
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The simplification movement started soon after the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) came into power. It used a lot of manpower and financial resources to quickly change the way of writing Chinese characters that had been in use for over 2,000 years. Within a few months, and without any comprehensive discussion or agreement from the public, the CCP announced that the way Chinese characters are to be written was being changed. Those who had different opinions were accused of being right-wing. It was actually a forced reform that has had serious consequences. The fact is, the simplification of Chinese characters is more of a loss than a gain. Putting Chinese character sets into a computer used to be a difficult thing (due to the design of the PC operating system), but since this problem has been resolved, the writing of Chinese characterizations are now no longer a problem (now most work-related writing is done by computer), no matter the input method used in Mainland China, Taiwan, or Hong Kong, the number of strokes per character also no longer matters. What damage to culture has the simplified Chinese character done? Today mainland Chinese young people are unable to read ancient books, and cannot even understand novels or documents from Hong Kong or Taiwan, where traditional Chinese characters are still used. The ancient documents cannot be simply discarded. People still need the traditional Chinese character searching system, and the simplified characters cannot be adapted into the ancient system so a new system also needs to be formed. By insisting on the use of the unregulated, simplified Chinese characters as the official writing form, the CCP regime has caused a proliferation of various unregulated writing styles in society, which makes the Chinese character system a mess. The simplification does not speed up the learning of characters. The fact is, regardless of the complexity of a character, the sound, shape and meaning of the character need to go through a person's vision, hearing, voice, and mind many times in order to memorize it. As long as "a government functions well and the people live
in harmony" and join hands to cooperate internationally and with
the computer gradually becoming more widespread, it is possible to
use the traditional Chinese characters and continue the cultural heritage.
Today, deep in people's hearts, they still hope that no matter what
new problems our culture encounters, major decisions should be made
in a democratic way to allow our people and experts to openly discuss
and deliberate before a decision is made. Back CHINA—In the Guizhou Province in Southwest China, the sunshine barely lasts for three days in a row during the winter. The weather is constantly gloomy and it often rains. On a slippery village road near the Moon Mountain area, a girl carrying a boy on her back to school is a daily sight. On Dec. 9, China's Today Morning Express published a report about a girl named Ning Yuexiang. She is a fourth grader at the Dadong Elementary school in Yong Li County. She is eight years old, and the boy she carries on her back is her two-year-old brother. She started washing clothes at the age of four. At age five, she climbed hills to chop wood with her father. She started taking care of her six-month old baby brother at six years of age so that her mother could work on the farm. The first time Ning Yuexiang took her brother to school, he cried in the classroom. The next day she was upset and went to school alone. After school, she realized that her brother had been crying at home for the whole day. Since then, she's been carrying him to school everyday. Her father often works away from home. Her mother takes care of the farm and her grandmother is over 90 years old. After school, Ning Yuexiang's daily chores consist of taking care of her brother, doing housework, washing clothes, and feeding the pigs. Ning Yuexiang's home is a three-room, two-story building. The partitions of the house are broken. The cooking stove, situated in the middle room, is surrounded by plastic sheeting to block the mountain breezes. The pig pen is located at the right. The upper floor is where the family sleeps and stores grains. The floor squeaks whenever someone walks. The room is filled with beds, boxes, and tools. When asked if life is hard, Ning Yuexiang says no. When asked if she gets tired of taking care of her brother, she responds that she is not tired as long as he's not crying and that she's happy when her brother is with her. As a class leader, Ning Yuexiang is never late to school. Her grades
have been good. Her face showed sadness when she talked about how
hard she has to study to go to college. She worries if her father
will be able to afford the tuition. Back On Dec. 19, a delegation made up of 117 VIPs from six Asian regions issued public announcements that the group would request unrestricted entry into China for a comprehensive investigation into labor camps, prisons, and the like, where Falun Gong practitioners are imprisoned. The Coalition to Investigate the Persecution of Falun Gong (CIPFG)-Asia delegation was formed on International Human Rights Day, Dec. 12, 2006. In a press conference, Szeto Wah, the vice chairman of CIPFG-Asia said that the group is made up of more than one hundred members, including national and local lawmakers, administrative officials, human rights activists, attorneys, medical doctors, scholars, heads of non-governmental organizations, and journalists. CIPFG members are from Taiwan, Japan, South Korea, Hong Kong, Macao, and Malaysia. Wah announced, "The group is formed by volunteers and is based on the common aspiration to protect basic human rights and concern for the seven-year-long persecution of Falun Gong by the CCP" [the Chinese Communist Party]. Wah is a former Hong Kong lawmaker and chairman of the Hong Kong Alliance in Support of Patriotic Democratic Movements in China. Wah said that CIPFG members were shocked after reading the independent "Report into Allegations of Organ Harvesting of Falun Gong Practitioners in China," published in July, 2006, by David Kilgour, former Canadian Secretary of State for Asia-Pacific, and international human rights lawyer David Matas. Lai also told The Epoch Times that currently more than 10 of the 25 counties and cities in Taiwan have passed resolutions condemning China's unethical organ harvesting. Many Taiwan lawmakers have joined in CIPFG-Asia. Different Beliefs, Same Fate Lam Tze Kin, the Hong Kong Democratic Party Central Committee member and convener of Hong Kong Concerns, said that although he was not a Falun Gong practitioner, as a Christian, he had seen his own religion suffer from persecution by various political powers for many years. He said that they (Falun Gong practitioners and Christians) shared the same fate. Hong Kong lawmaker Lam Wing Yin, a member of the delegation and also a Christian, pointed out that there was no freedom of religion in China. Some church organizations have been forced to go underground in order to survive. "To harvest organs from living persons, especially from those
whom one dislikes, and to make profit from them—this is not only against
humanity and human rights, it is simply inhuman," Szeto Wah said.
"We hope more people in the world will be concerned about this
matter." Back Gao Zhisheng, a Beijing-based Chinese human rights lawyer, was convicted of subversion and received a suspended three-year prison sentence on December 22. Gao was also stripped of political rights for one year. Gao's attorney Mo Shaoping, appointed by Gao's family, was barred from the trial. Upon learning the verdict, Mo said that, having been barred from the courtroom and denied access to the court-cited evidence, he was not in a position to determine whether the evidence and reasoning used by the court could be justified. Zhang Jiankang, a Xi'an-based Chinese activist lawyer, commented, "Beijing has a history of giving severe sentences to activists, such as Wei Jingsheng, Xu Wenli, and Wang Dan. I have not heard of any leniency on charges related to state security, especially since Gao is a leader of human rights and democratic movements in China. This is completely unheard of. This is a new kind of response from Beijing. It is likely the result of domestic and international pressure." A Gag Order to Protect the Olympic Games Professor Sun Wenguang from Shandong University said, "Attorney Gao Zhisheng conducted in-depth investigations to fight for and call for human rights in China. He has made tremendous contributions to China, but the Chinese Communist regime repays him by convicting him of subversion. This illustrates that the Chinese Communist Party has absolutely no regard for the law. It is acting against all sorts of common sense!" Prof. Sun said, "The number of protests in China by farmers, workers and students are far higher than in 2005. The Olympic Games are near. The Chinese Communist authorities have to silence these voices and suppress these movements before the games. They hope that by gagging them for five or more years, there will be few human rights or civil rights activities in 2007 and 2008 and there will not be any voice of 'discord.'" Mr. Wang Youjin, a researcher at the Hong Kong Institute of Asia-Pacific Studies, commented that the Chinese regime can always trump up a charge if they want to condemn someone in China. He believes that the suspended prison sentence is practically a gag order. Wang said, "This was more common during the Cultural Revolution.
The fact that the Chinese Communist Party is still resorting to this
approach shows that its legal system is getting worse and sliding
downward at an accelerating rate." Back Beijing hosted China's first "Forum on Think Tanks" and selected the "Top Ten Think Tanks of China." However, articles published in Beijing's newspapers criticized that China's think tanks cannot march to the beat of a different drum, and the public has no freedom to voice their opinions in authorities' decision-making. Overseas Boxun.net wired an article published in Beijing's Common Folks journal, which states that in the framework of modern countries, official research organizations are the inner brains of the bureaucratic system, while unofficial research think tanks are the essential outer brains of the country's development. As soon as the outer think tanks submit to act as the official inner brain's "servant" or "announcer," agrees to only singing praises and talking big without doing anything, it cannot serve its function as it should. In China, these so-called think tanks rarely express anything contrary to the opinions of the authorities. Hu Ping, editor-in-chief of the Chinese language politics journal, Beijing's Spring, headquartered in New York, said: "It is completely inaccurate to even call these organizations in China 'Think Tanks.' It is in fact not a think tank at all, just like the Chinese Communist Party is not a party at all in the normal sense. It calls itself the party-in-power, but since there is no incumbent party, what sense does it make to call itself the "party-in-power?" It is actually a despotic group, a completely different party concept than that in our normal sense. Similarly, the think tank that we talk about is an organization that exists in a free and open world that raises all kinds of considerations and plans for the current society and government's policy. In China, there isn't such an independent organization at all. Therefore, in this sense, China doesn't even have think tanks in the original sense." The Common Folks article suggests that these think tanks should experience the following things: see a doctor in the hospital, pay for some tuition in college, buy an apartment in a big city, live in the countryside for a month, and work in a coal mine for a week. The article holds that China has huge think tanks but they lack good development. Think tanks should embody the combined wisdom of the 1.3 billion Chinese people. Back Driver
Suspected of Intentionally Killing 7-Year-Old Boy Back On the afternoon of December 23, a 7-year-old boy in Chengdu City of China's southwestern Sichuan Province was crushed and killed by a truck driver. Witnesses suspect the driver of intentionally crushing and killing the boy to avoid paying high injury compensation fees. This was the second incidence of suspected intentional killing of a child involving a vehicle accident within a week. According to a report by WCC Daily, on the afternoon of December 23, a child and a middle-aged woman were trapped under a yellow truck with a temporary Hubei license plate parked on a slope in front a service station. The 7-year-old boy's right hand was caught under the truck's right rear wheel. More than a dozen locals ran out to help the trapped mother and child. The locals instructed the driver to back up the truck so the two injured could be rescued. A witness recounted, "The truck driver quickly got into the vehicle to back up, but the truck started sliding forward again. Everyone at the scene was frightened and started yelling for the driver to brake to avoid crushing the two under his vehicle. Later the right rear wheel of the truck ran over the child's body." Afterwards, when the driver was questioned, he covered his face, responding, "You aren't the police, why ask so many questions?" Witness Chen recalled that the first time the boy was crushed under the car he wasn't killed and still yelled out for his mom. The driver was clearly told to back up, yet the truck moved forward. Chen claims the driver's actions were "absolutely intentional" and suspects that the driver figured he would have to pay more compensation for an injury than a death. Other witnesses confirmed that the truck did back up, but then moved forward. They suspect that the steep slope and insufficient braking might have caused the vehicle to move forward. On December 20, a 3-year-old boy in Chengdu City was hit and killed by a car. A family witness claims the driver backed the car up after examining the situation, running over the toddler twice and killing him. This was another case that sparked national interest. Heated discussions about China's "hitting and killing is better than hitting and wounding" rule have been launched. Some hold the opinion that the rule is caused by China's inadequate legal system. Survey results on China's popular Sohu.net show that over 95 percent of readers believe the driver intentionally killed the boy to avoid high injury compensation bills. In addition, nearly 39 percent believe that the reason similar tragedies repeatedly occur is "related to the flawed compensation law." Back |
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