Comment by russellbeattie

There's a thing in China where younger generations have to write out the pinyin for certain words when writing notes by hand. (I'm not sure if it's because they've forgotten the characters, or just how to write them. Maybe a little of both?)

So for example, if someone is jotting down a grocery list, they'll write common words like rice or milk in Hanzi, but then struggle to remember the characters for deodorant, and just write it out using pinyin.

There's a lot of hand-wringing about it there as well. Kids these days!