The forum for the second Chinese Character Festival kicked off at the National Central Library on May 26. Taipei Mayor Ma Ying-jeou stressed the importance of traditional Chinese characters in passing on the culture. Letters detailing the argument for protecting the heritage of traditional Chinese characters were handed out at the forum’s venue. The document stated that the city government is determined in promoting traditional characters, and expressed the hope that the beautiful language will not deteriorate into a set of incomprehensive symbols for future generations. The Chinese Character Festival, organized by the city’s Department of Cultural Affairs, aims to create a platform for the debate between the use of traditional Chinese characters and simplified Chinese characters. Guests of the forum included scholars from both the People’s Republic of China (PRC) and other regions in Asia. Hopefully, through objective exchanges of opinions, a solution could be discovered for settling the issue of Chinese character usage. During his address, Mayor Ma remarked that the appearances of traditional Chinese characters we use today are quite similar to the Chinese characters from the early days of Chinese history. This shows the importance of the role which traditional Chinese characters play in passing on the culture. However, that is not to say simplified Chinese is an inferior system. Ma said that it does not matter whether you write using simplified or traditional characters – as long people can understand. Yet, the stance of the city government is that documents and publications must be printed in traditional Chinese characters. Ma said that PRC promoted simplified Chinese to accomplish two goals: to increase literacy rate and to raise the efficiency of work for encouraging economic growth. However, he doesn’t believe that simplified Chinese is the only way to attain these objectives. The Mayor pointed out that the difference of traditional and simplified characters varies by an average of one or two strokes. In addition, Asian economic powerhouses such as Taiwan and Hong Kong both adopt the use of traditional Chinese, which shows no ill effect upon their economic health. He admitted that the road in promoting the use of traditional Chinese characters will not be easy, since there are only 50 million people using it today. Looking at the 1.3 billion people using simplified Chinese, Ma noted that there is still a long way to go.