Comment 8 for bug 1173571

@Laney: I just spent some time checking what is changed with those fontconfig files.

I found that Micro Hei related config listed in 69-language-selector-zh-tw.conf before raring is merged into 65-ttf-wqy-microhei.conf. Those binding things listed at the last part of the conf are outdated and should be removed. The binding setting was to mimic the look and feel provided by previous Ubuntu versions which use DejaVu Sans as default font. (Yeah, I wrote those lines) However, we use "ubuntu" font now. That configuration is not needed anymore.

Here is the overview of my analysis about the font configuration now.

1. the setting in 65-ttf-wqy-microhei.conf does not strongly affect the Chinese characters provided by those pseudo font family such as serif, sans-serif and monospace.

Here is the priority of the conf affecting the Chinese characters provided by sans-serif,
*I rm 69-language-selector-zh-tw.conf and found that sans-serif was then WenQuanYi Zen Hei (mainly decided by 64-wqy-zenhei.conf and partially 65-nonlatin.conf).
*I rm 64-wqy-zenhei.conf and found that sans-serif was later AR PL UKai (mainly decided by 65-fonts-arphic-ukai.conf).
*I rm 65-fonts-arphic-ukai.conf and then it would be AR PL UMing (mainly decided by 65-fonts-arphic-uming.conf).
*I rm 65-fonts-arhpic-uming.conf and it later became WenQuanYi Zen Hei (mainly decided by 65-nonlatin.conf).
*I rm 65-nanlatin.conf and it became WenQuanYi MicroHei finally.

Bottom line is that it is not that easy if we want to make things work in 65-ttf-wqy-microhei.conf. Maybe we have to figure out a better setting or change the priority.

2. 69-language-selector-zh-tw.conf has higher priority in this case about the Chinese characters provided by sans-serif than those conf with smaller prefix number.

Improvement proposal

0. it is better to clean up those unnecessary lines in 65-ttf-wqy-microhei.conf
1a. change 69-language-selector-zh-tw.conf directly to use WenQuanYi Micro Hei instead of WenQuanYi Zen Hei.
1b. make 65-ttf-wqy-microhei.conf setting affect stronger. Change the settings or tune the prefix number or somewhat.

I believe that the easiest way to fix this issue is 1a.

Well, I just don't figure out why you have to move to WenQuanYi Zen Hei for Chinese characters. Moreover, you seem to have no convincing reason about the idea behind this decision making. The visual appearance provided by WenQuanYi Micro Hei is absolutely the best choice from the eyes of Chinese readers.

This is my point of view.
Hope that we will have better configuration for Chinese users in the futer.