The characters are a reflection of these societies' history and culture. Doing away with them would break the connection future generations have with their own

The characters are a reflection of these societies' history and culture. Doing away with them would break the connection future generations have with their own literature, art, and history. China did officially approve a new system of simplified characters (簡體字) in the 1950s and 60s to improve literacy levels and save time (1), but many people think the thousands of invented characters don't look nearly as good as their traditional counterparts (繁體字) which are still used in Taiwan and Hong Kong and some overseas Chinese communities in SE Asia. There is also a slight learning curve for people from China to learn traditional characters and Taiwanese and Hong Kongers to learn the simplified versions used in China, but the exchange of mass media, social media, and Chinese travellers seems to have helped people in the different areas get more familiar with the different systems. 1. https://harvardextended.blogspot.com/2007/11/undoing-simplified-characters.html https://harvardextended.blogspot.com/2007/11/undoing-simplif...