The poster of Waterland Kwanyin #34

by lawrence

Got this poster of the 34th installment of Waterland Kwanyin, the regular sound art event in Beijing curated by YAN Jun. The Chinese characters on the poster are Traditional Chinese (TC). (UPDATE: Read comments of this post)
I always have some problem with mainland Chinese designers’ using ONLY TC on posters, leaflets, websites, etc. While a good portion of mainlanders agree that TC is visually more appealing than SC (Simplified Chinese, or SuperCollider), it’s more than just an aesthetic thing for them to actually use TC in public domain. In many cases it’s a deliberate claim of the party’s elitism of being economically and ideologically more “advanced” than the average, of being different, or so-called “international”; in other words, it’s political (in the broader sense of the word).

If possible, I would like to conduct a survey about why mainland designers use TC in their designs. Are they 100% sure that they use it only because it “looks better”?

Mind you, this is essentially different from Chinese (and other non-native speakers) using English in public domain. I, for example, being born and raised in mainland China (Shenzhen and Guangzhou) and have never been abroad for more than 10 days, blog in English in order to reach an international audience on a topic which has scarce exposure in the English-speaking world. But what about mainlanders writing in TC? Although there are a certain amount of people in Taiwan and Hong Kong who would have problem reading SC, it’s unlikely that they’re the audience those mainland publishers can’t live without.

Take a look at the poster above: it’s a local event happens in mainland, it’s curated by a mainlander, most of the participants are mainlanders, I have no information of the designer, but I bet he/she is a mainlander too - the ignorance of English punctuation conventions as manifested in this poster is the unmistakable whistle-blower of the designer’s identity (correct me if I’m wrong, Yan Jun). In such a setting, it is a little bit weird to see ALL (why stroke this out? read comments) Chinese characters in TC. Is it just me? Feedback welcomed.

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5 Comments »

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  1. First of all, let me make one clarification: the characters here on this poster are not ALL “traditional characters.” If you look carefully, the characters for “Yan” (in Yan Jun) and “Jing” (in Shen Jing) are “simplified characters.” The real “traditional” forms are 顔 and 靜 (and this is not related to the issue of fonts).

    Comment by Dajuin — February 7, 2006 #

  2. Very interesting! It appears that except for the two characters you’ve pointed out, all the other in the black box at bottom have exactly the same form in TC and SC.

    So it’s pretty safe to say that, for the words at the top of the poster, the designer typed them out in SC and convert them into TC afterwards, but for the words in the black box, he/she simply skipped the convertion and used SC - presumably the default Chinese input system of his/her computer.

    This is making the thing even more interesting: does the designer believe that the characters in the black box, in their SC form, to be “complex enough” to “deceive” people that they’re TC (which are denser and more complex in stroke structure)?

    Comment by lawrence — February 7, 2006 #

  3. Well, i think you have already in your posts identified the crux of the issue here, i.e., visual effect.

    Even though i acknowledge the other, psychological dimensions of people using Traditional Characters in Mainland China, i want to point out that from a purely design point of view, it is first and foremost the visual aspect that drives people to Traditional Characters.

    Many mainland designers have told me again and again that they sometimes insist on using Traditional Characters because the simplified form just would not look right in headlines, especially when blown up really big on posters and billboards.

    A good case in point is the poster for the recent sound art installation show which i curated in Hangzhou. I saw the designer Jiang Zhuyun typed in the title of the show in large, traditional characters without even thinking, while using all simplified characters for the rest of the poster. Upon my asking, he answered that the simplified version of “sheng” (sound) just wouldn’t do for such a large font size, that it would start looking really weird if you stare at it for a longer period of time (which is really true).

    In any case, i wouldn’t fuss about the use of traditional characters in this poster. True, there are many cases of misuse and, more often than not, downright outrageous mistakes in choosing traditional characters, but i don’t see it here.

    Comment by Dajuin — February 7, 2006 #

  4. Well, I would like to say it depends on the confidence of designers, how strong the intention in their mind. Let’s see Korean character, I bet they are real ugly stuff in most Chinese designer’s view, but it doesn’t really affect Korean make poster with it.
    Culture is built on people’s lifestyle, as well as aesthetics, if we are floating and chasing fashion from other places but never settle down and trust ourself, who can we blame.

    Comment by a — February 7, 2006 #

  5. Usually, discussions on the issue of simplified vs. traditional chinese characters get us nowhere, because people who argue (for either side) don’t really know their subject: the Chinese writing system — its origins and evolution, the science of character structure and methods of character invention, visual recognition and reading comprehension, etc., etc., and most of all, our own history.

    Thus we have oxymoronic reasoning such as “… chasing fashion from other places…” One thing is true though — confidence is exactly the key here. But we need to know ourselves before discussing confidence or the lack of it.

    Comment by Dajuin — February 12, 2006 #

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