In history, Chinese characters once had brought a significant impact on the cultures of China's neighboring countries. In recent years, as Chinese economy grows fast and many Asian countries devote more efforts to protecting their traditional cultures, learning Chinese has become hot again in these Asian countries, the Global Times reported.
In South Korea, learning to write Chinese has become an indispensable part of many people's daily life activities. South Korea's educational authority requires that its middle school students should know at least 1,800 Chinese characters. Learning Chinese characters has become a quasi-compulsory course in primary schools.
In 2004, the South Korea Language Association organized a Chinese language proficiency test for its citizens. About 1.04 million people in the country took the test. Many colleges and universities in South Korea have opened classes on Chinese characters and during vacations, teachers will give some extra lectures to students on Chinese languages. Learning Chinese has become fashionable even in prisons, and those prisoners who learn Chinese language well will be awarded by reducing their penalties.
Traditional Vietnamese culture shares many common grounds with traditional Chinese culture and among all elements, Chinese characters have played a very important part. Although Chinese characters are no longer used in modern Vietnamese language, they still appear on many social occasions and in Vietnamese folk custom. The word for "double happiness", for example, an invented Chinese character that does not appear in the dictionary and is frequently used for marriage ceremonies, are also used by many Vietnamese people to celebrate marriage. When the Spring Festival arrives, many Vietnamese people, based on folk culture, will also paste some red couplets on their doors written in Chinese characters.
In recent years, as people of the two countries hold more economic exchanges and trade activities, learning Chinese has become even more popular in Vietnam. Many students choose Chinese as their major when studying in colleges and lots of Chinese language courses are available in society. Chinese characters, for "luck, wealth and longevity" and "making fortunes in doing business", frequently appear in many wooden carved handicraft articles made by Vietnamese craftsmen. People can also see Chinese characters in many daily-use articles and food packages.
In Japan, many people like to read Chinese poems and learn to write Chinese characters. There is an association in Japan called Chinese Language Capability Testing Association. According to this association, in 2005 some 2.4 million people took the Chinese language proficiency test offered by it, and the figure is still rising. Many middle schools and colleges will look at students' academic performance in Chinese language when they enroll students. In light of the foreign culture invasion, many Japanese media urge the government to take measures to protect Chinese characters and promote the use of Chinese characters.
(Chinanews.cn January 9, 2007)
