VietNamNet Bridge - A debate has been raised among educators and scholars about whether to teach Chinese writing in the public school system.

Dr Doan Le Giang from the HCM City University of Social Sciences and Humanities spoke at a workshop about the preservation and development of the Vietnamese language in the global integration era, explaining why Chinese writing should be taught again at school.

A young Vietnamese, when visiting a pagoda and looking at hoanh phi (horizontal lacquered boards with Chinese characters), parallel sentences or ancestral tablets hung, may find them unfamiliar, similar to any pagoda in Chinese, Taiwan or Korea.  

“Young people find no connection between them and ancestors in the past,” said Giang. 

Vietnamese students and researchers in social sciences cannot understand the books by ancestors if the documents are not translated or transcribed in Latin characters.

“They have no feeling when reading a poem in Chinese characters by Nguyen Trai (a Vietnamese Confucian scholar, a noted poet, a skilled politician and a master tactician – reporter), or the Kieu Tale in Nom characters (the ancient writing script of Vietnam) by Nguyen Du (a celebrated Vietnamese poet),” he said.

Vietnamese students and researchers in social sciences cannot understand the books by ancestors if the documents are not translated or transcribed in Latin characters.

In fact, Giang was not the first scholar who spoke about the necessity of teaching Chinese writing at general school. 

Twenty years ago, Cao Xuan Hao, a philologist, mentioned the issue in an article published in ‘Kien Thuc Ngay Nay’ (Today’s knowledge) Journal. The idea was applauded by scholars Nguyen Dinh Chu, Nguyen Canh Toan and Le Van Quan.

However, many experts and parents do not agree. 

“Chinese writing is just an instrument for us to learn about the past of the nation. And not knowing Chinese characters does not mean bad knowledge about the nation’s history,” Hao Hiep, a VietNamNet reader wrote from Australia.

“It would be a great illusion to assume that students who learn Chinese at school would be able to read and understand documents that ancestors wrote hundreds or thousands of years ago,” he commented.

Meanwhile, Nguyen Hong Con from the Hanoi National University believes that Vietnam should not make a break with the teaching of Chinese to students, but says it should also not be taught at all education levels.

Con chooses a third way – teaching 300 characters to high school students as a compulsory subject for students majoring in social sciences and an optional subject for others. 


Kim Chi