Chinese characters under threat in digital age(2)

Early education

Parents are also beginning to realize the importance of teaching children calligraphy at an early age, said Ji Jiejing, who is head of ancient Chinese civilization studies at the Beijing Confucian Temple and Imperial College.

"Mostly it is those who are really into Chinese traditional culture," she said. "Generally, people send their children to calligraphy classes far less than to English or Math Olympiad classes."

The college, which was the central institute of learning for ancient Chinese dynasties, has run calligraphy courses for children aged 5 to 16 since 2007.

The classrooms are in an institute emperors frequently visited to read Confucian classics, which is meant to bring children back to ancient times and appreciate traditional culture, Ji said.

Gao Tianchen, a calligraphy teacher at the Imperial College, said in his class, children write characters with soft brushes to the sounds of the guqin, a traditional seven-stringed instrument.

"Before teaching a Chinese character, I show students every major change on its pattern and structure in history and tell children the stories behind the changes," he said.

His teaching focuses on helping children memorize the structure of a character and understand its meaning, rather than studying in pinyin.

"That way the students can better remember Chinese characters when they grow up, even though they are using a keyboard every day," he added.

Yang Fei said the improvement of her 8-year-old son's handwriting after the class was far beyond her expectations.

"My son wrote the character shou, meaning longevity, as a birthday gift for his grandmother last year," she said. "I realized then that he'd come to understand filial piety through the characters.

"The meaning would have been lost if he'd just typed it in pinyin," she added.

TV show is a lesson in culture

An educational television program, promoting the joys of writing in Chinese characters, is doing well in the summer ratings.

The show, Dictation Assembly of Chinese Characters, is on China Central Television every August weekend.

In more ways than one, it is giving audiences lessons in character as it displays the intricacies of writing.

"I decided to use handwriting on my cellphone instead of pinyin," Liu Xiaojie, a Fujian province resident, wrote on Sina Weibo after watching the program.

The program gathers 32 student teams from high schools across the country, who compete over 12 rounds to write the best characters from dictation.

Like the popular spelling bee in the United States, this program reaches and attracts a wide audience.

"The US TV program helps merge people from different ethnic groups into mainstream American culture," said Guan Zhengwen, director of Dictation Assembly of Chinese Characters.

"A show that can pass on Chinese civilization through showing Chinese handwriting is needed," he said.