The long descent into forgetfulness for Ma Silang began after he graduated from high school, went off to London for three years to study photography and bought his first computer.

    The 30-year-old fashion photographer, a native Beijinger, has such difficulty writing in his mother tongue today that when he was scribbling a shopping list he suddenly realized that he had forgotten one of two characters that make up the Chinese word for “shampoo.”

    This strange new form of illiteracy -- dysgraphia, the inability to write -- is peculiar to China. The epicenter of the contagion is in places like the multilevel, glass-facade emporiums that cater to China’s tech-savvy nouveau riche. The typical victim is someone like Mr. Ma, who is young, well-educated and affluent.

    The more gadgets people own -- cell phones, smart phones, computers -- the less often they go through the elaborate sequence of strokes that make up Chinese characters. Whether on their computers or texting on phones, most Chinese use a system where they type out the sound of the word phonetically.

    In a poll commissioned by the China Youth Daily, 83 percent of the 2,072 respondents acknowledged problems with writing characters. The phenomenon is so common that there is even a name for it, tibiwangzi, which transliterates as “take pen, forget character.”

    To some extent, similar problems arise anywhere that people rely on technology rather than memory -- outsourcing of the brain, as they call it in the studies that address the question of whether computers and the internet are stifling intelligence.

    The situation has become a cultural crisis in China because the characters, more than any other facet of life, epitomize thousands of years of tradition.

    The Chinese system is the oldest continuously-used written language in the world. The characters used today can be traced to pictographs found on bones and turtle shells dating to 1,200 BC.

    Outside a shop, 41-year-old Wang Jiazhong traced characters in water on the pavement with a device that looked more like a mop than a brush. “This is my hobby,” he said. “Chinese people these days care only about material life. Even in Japan and Korea more people practice calligraphy than here,” he lamented. “The government has to do something. Without government intervention, people won't pay attention.”

    Source: www.latimes.com

 中国新“文盲”的困扰

       对马斯朗（音）来说，提笔忘字的过程早在他读完高中时就开始了。当时，他前往伦敦学习摄影，并买了第一台电脑。

       这名30岁的时尚摄影师是北京人，现在写字很费劲。有一天，当他给自己列一张购物清单时突然发现，他连“香波”都不会写了。

       这种奇特的新型“文盲”，更确切地说，是书写困难，以前并不多见。那些有着玻璃外墙的多层商场让懂技术的中国人着迷。马斯朗就是一个典型的受害者， 他年轻、受过高等教育、有钱。

       人们拥有的小玩意儿越多——手机、智能手机、电脑——他们就越不愿意一笔一画地写字。无论是在电脑上还是用手机发短信，大多数中国人都习惯用拼音输入法。

       一项《中国青年报》的调查显示，2072名受访者中的83%承认写字有困难。这种现象很常见，以至于它甚至有一个名称：“提笔忘字”。

       在某种程度上，类似问题出现在人们依靠技术而非记忆的所有地方——“智力外包”。一些有关电脑和网络扼杀个人智力的论文就提到了这一点。

       在中国，这种情况已经发展到引起一场文化危机的地步，因为汉字与其他方面不同，是几千年中华文化的象征。

       汉字是世界上最古老的且一直沿用的书写体系。现在使用的汉字可以追溯到3000多年前骨头和龟壳上的象形文字。

       在一家店铺外，41岁的王家中（音）正在用一个类似拖把而非毛笔的东西蘸着水在人行道上写字。他说：“这是我的爱好。”他抱怨道：“中国人现在只想着物质生活。练书法的日本人和韩国人都比这儿多。政府必须有所作为。政府不管，人们就不会去关注。”