At 14:30 on September 5th, 2014, an academic report entitled “Asian Characters and Computer”was presented on Xipu Campus of SWJTU by Professor Eiji Matsuoka, doctoral supervisor of Tokyo Gakugei University and Guest Professor of SWJTU. All the students and faculty of the Department of Japanese attended the seminar presided over by Professor Cheng Fangming.
As indicated in Professor Eiji Matsuoka’s speech, Asian countries have begun to abandon the use of characters in the course of modernization. However, the debut of computers saved the day for Asian characters through coding and triggered their revival. In the seminar Professor Eiji Matsuoka discussed issues of the integration of Asian characters, character encoding and linguistic context, as well as frictions and conflicts among different cultures involved, etc. The forms and shapes of Chinese characters indicate the meanings in Chinese, and the same applies to Japanese characters. Theoretically, the forms of characters can be unified among different cultures but it is likely to result in misunderstanding and will inflict chaos on social life and education. Professor Eiji Matsuoka introduced to the audience how East Asian countries, like China, Japan, Korea, and Vietnam, deal with issues concerning the standards for inputting characters into computers. Participants in the seminar pondered on the issues about the unification of East Asian characters and actively expressed themselves. .
At the end of the speech, Professor Eiji Matsuoka answered questions from students and teachers and took pictures with them.