（Photo: Huang Qiusheng）

July 15^th, Hong Kong famous actor Huang Qiusheng issued a statement saying that Chinese civilization has died in Chinese Mainland on his Sina Weibo, the Chinese version of twitter. He wrote in traditional Chinese characters on the post: "actually, half of Chinese people can't read traditional Chinese characters now. Chinese civilization has died in Mainland China." Right after the micro blog was posted, it went viral among Chinese netizens.

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Nowadays, the official characters in Chinese Mainland are simplified characters. Simplified Chinese characters are standardized Chinese characters for use in Mainland China. The government of the People's Republic of China in Mainland China has promoted them for use in printing since the 1950s and 1960s in an attempt to increase literacy. They are officially used in the People's Republic of China and Singapore.

However, traditional Chinese characters are currently used in Hong Kong, Macau, and Taiwan. Traditional Chinese characters are those Chinese characters in any character set that does not contain newly created characters or character substitutions performed after 1946. The modern shapes of traditional Chinese characters first appeared with the emergence of the clerical script during the Han Dynasty. The name "traditional Chinese" is used to contrast traditional characters with Simplified Chinese characters.

Huang Qiusheng said that "more than half of people in Mainland China can't read traditional Chinese characters" on his micro blog. Chinese netizens started contradicting his view.

@Pawn: do you mean there are still half of people in Chinese Mainland who can read traditional Chinese characters? Wow, that's the greatest accomplishment of China!

@Palace: 90% of Chinese people can't read seal characters. Ah! Chinese civilization is dying. None of Chinese can read inscriptions on bones or tortoise shells. Ah! Chinese civilization died definitely. Do you know Chinese civilization is about benevolence, righteousness, courtesy, wisdom and trust? Not only the traditional characters!

@Lifly: How many people can read Latin in Europe and America? We should respect each other.