I'm surprised you've never experienced this. Even names often require an explanation, because the pronunciation is insufficient to convey which words (i.e. characters) are used.
>Mandarin can be written phonetically perfectly fine
It can, and I use hanyu pinyin daily, but my point is that given the small space of possible sounds, it often has a great deal of ambiguity, and is mentally taxing to read. Have you ever tried reading an essay or book in pinyin? With syllabic spacing? There will be many places where it is simply not possible to know for certain what a particular word is. And then there are text books, scientific books.
Chinese characters do indeed have strong historical and cultural value, but that is not why they are still around. They are still around because they are essential to the written language.
>Mandarin can be written phonetically perfectly fine
It can, and I use hanyu pinyin daily, but my point is that given the small space of possible sounds, it often has a great deal of ambiguity, and is mentally taxing to read. Have you ever tried reading an essay or book in pinyin? With syllabic spacing? There will be many places where it is simply not possible to know for certain what a particular word is. And then there are text books, scientific books.
Chinese characters do indeed have strong historical and cultural value, but that is not why they are still around. They are still around because they are essential to the written language.