Children practicing calligraphy

Photo:CFP

GENTE DE CHINA (中国人):

CHINA PEOPLE (中国人):

Twenty years ago, if you had beautiful penmanship, you would be the target of admiration and even envy. For a long time in China, handwriting was a way to judge a person. An old Chinese adage goes, "a person's handwriting is a reflection of character." 

But with more people typing away on keyboards and cell phones, writing Chinese characters by hand is becoming extinct. Some worry that technology is causing a crisis for the 5,000-year-old art of penmanship in China. Worse, many scholars fear that the decline in handwriting will have negative effects on culture. 

Ge Fei, a professor of Chinese language and literature at Tsinghua University, is wary of the direction handwriting is headed. "Chinese characters carry the culture of China and have intrinsic characteristics. Its decline will have unpredictable consequences," he said.

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