For Yin Liang, a 26-year-old purchasing agent at a company, his embarrassment over forgetting how to write characters has gradually disappeared since he started to use the handwriting input method on his iPhone 4 a month ago.

　　“When you write on the touch screen, you use your finger, instead of a mouse or keyboard,” Yin says.

　　“Actually, your finger is like a pen, writing the complicated characters that have long been spelled by pinyin, an alphabet-based input system. Whether typing on computers or texting on phones, most users in China type by phonetically （按照发音地）spelling out the sounds of the characters and the software then gives a menu of characters that fit the pronunciation, so users only need to recognize the character.

　　Handwriting technology on a mobile phone touch screen has been around for years and became popular with the iPhone, which recognizes the input and offers a wide selection of characters.

　　“It’s efficient and accurate,” Yin says.

　　Chinese characters are the oldest continuously used system of writing in the world, but as pinyin-based typing has become more widespread, youths have started forgetting how to write out characters. This was one of the main topics for debate at the first Cross-Straits Chinese Character Art Festival, held recently in Beijing, which attracted experts from Taiwan and the mainland.

　　According to Zhang Zikang, president of the Culture and Art Publishing House, writing with a pen on the touch screen brings handwriting into the digital age. It is even better when you write with your finger, feeling the flow of the cursive script（草写体）and the grace and art of Chinese characters, he says.

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