Reaction to speaking Mandarin in Hong Kong

[yang1504]

A few months ago I met a couple sitting next to me in a restaurant. The guy spoke Cantonese throughout. The woman spoke in Mandarin. They kept chatting about gossip on magazines and the woman's family, and neither had any difficulties understanding the other. The woman was clearly from Shenzhen, and the guy a HK local. I think they were cool.

How can you tell if one's from Shenzhen? Years ago I was sitting on the train with two ABC kids behind me talking. One spoke Cantonese and the other Mandarin. They would switch to the language the other used before switching back. Both were native to the languages.

I used to know this guy who hails from HK. He refused to speak canto and spoke English on a daily basis. There were these situations in which he talked to me in English, and I replied in canto. I found it awkward but got used to it.

[skylee]

How can you tell if one's from Shenzhen?

The woman talked about her home in Shenzhen.

Last month I was stopped by this mainlander on the street. He asked if he could speak to me in Mandarin. I nodded and then he told me that he came from Shanghai to meet his friend here but his friend had gone to Singapore. Then he asked me for money. And then I turned and left. He was very decent-looking and spoke in very good Mandarin.

[wushijiao]

this is interesting. so different from the Cantonese a dying language point of view (see wushijiao's post)

I didn't say anything about Cantonese "dying". In fact, some people, such as myself, have wondered about whether Cantonese will gain in popularity in certain areas of Guangdong.

But this is different from whether or not people use Cantonese with foreigners in HK. At the most basic level, the dynmaics boil down to:

Asian looking person= people speak Cantonese, non-Asian=

.

I've had thousands and thousands of experiences with this dynamic and know what I'm talking about. Just yesterday, I ordered lunch in a local restaurant in Cantonese, and they replied in English. It's extremely frustrating. In contrast, I've been to restaurants/stores with many Mandarin speakers, and the wait staff always addresses them first in Cantonese. Also, the fact the most educated people in hk (who went to English-medium universities) have such proficient English is another huge factor.

Cantonese will almost certainly be the main language for the in-group people in HK, but what they speak with outsiders is another question. Right now, that language is almost always English. I could see a way in which, perhaps in 10-20 years, Mandarin becomes much more of a lingua franca between Cantonese speakers and foreigners (including the many Koreans, Japanese, and Vietnamese- many of which are learning Mandarin now), at least to a much higher extent than it is now. I know quite a few young HKers who speak really good Mandarin, and as this generation becomes more prominent demographically, and as the foreigners who speak Mandarin in Shanghai and Beijing move to HK and do business there, Mandarin might take on a larger role, perhaps not unlike how English might be used between a Mexican tourist and a Dutch local in Amsterdam.

By the way, Ed long, here's the source to the article.

I do think Cantonese is a cool and vibrant language, I just find it difficult to use! Sorry to complain...

Edited April 23, 2010 at 03:20 AM by wushijiao

[skylee]

Wow I wish I were there to hear every word if I could. It would be cool to be a couple like that.

I think such couples are not that rare. I was in CDG/Paris a couple of years ago waiting for my delayed flight to London. Sitting next to me was a family of five, the mother spoke German to the kids and read German newspaper, and the father spoke in French and read French newspaper. The kids spoke in French among themselves but replied to their mother in German. And because the flight was delayed and the kids were getting impatient, the mother forced one of the boys to study English (!!). The poor kid spoke in English just like a French and the mother, being quite cross, asked him, "where is the "s"?" Pook kid.

[Meng Lelan]

the mother forced one of the boys to study English (!!). The poor kid spoke in English just like a French and the mother, being quite cross, asked him, "

If I forced my boys to study Chinese in an airport they would be very cross with me.

[yang1504]

I will never speak English in Hong Kong, even though I know it is one of the official languages of Hong Hong.

It depends. I'm pretty sure they don't appreciate your effort to learn the local language unless you speak it at a conversational level. At least two people I know, a Singapore girl and an ABC bloke, have terrible experiences with cab drivers because they spoke broken canto. They thought they could pick up canto through TVB series. But they were just wrong, being given an attitude and humiliated.

A Hainan girl and a HK girl, both my friends, were confronted by an officer at a HK subway station. Don't remember what happened. The middle-aged man was particularly rude to the Hainan girl who explained her situation in pretty bad canto. He said in a derogatory tone, "This is HK. You can't do whatever you want." Just because she was on the wrong, doesn't mean he had to be so harsh, as figured by the HK girl. She sympathised with her friend saying, "You should of spoken English to him. That uneducated douche would look up to you and show some respect. In case he didn't speak English, he'd shut his face."

[Ed Log]

Supposedly quite a few mainlanders speak English in and around HK so they get treated as ABC's rather than mainlanders, but switch back to Mandarin if the the situation needs it (e.g. wet market)

[Shi Tong]

I've only ever been to Hong Kong for 2 days, which was dissapointing because I wanted to stay longer, but that's life!

I found it quite odd, being English that a lot of people actually didn't speak English, not only that, but trying Mandarin a couple of times, ALSO didn't work. I then basically learned a few Cantonese words with the help of my HK friend and got along much better.. he did all the talking from there on in, but I really did think I would be ok with English and Mandarin.. and found that people speak Cantonese almost exclusively.

I was only there for 2 days though.

While there I did go to a show which had Mandarin, English and Catonese, which repeated throughout. It was actually quite annoying!

On the subject of "being noticed", I've found it's more obvious from children, they're always surprised, but they're also ruder.. a lot of adults find it easier to "ignore", but you'll also get the inevitable questioning (how long have you lived here, where did you learn, your Chinese is really good, etc). Which I personally dont really mind.

[xiaocai]

It depends. I'm pretty sure they don't appreciate your effort to learn the local language unless you speak it at a conversational level. At least two people I know, a Singapore girl and an ABC bloke, have terrible experiences with cab drivers because they spoke broken canto. They thought they could pick up canto through TVB series. But they were just wrong, being given an attitude and humiliated.

Don't care anymore. I will just speak in whatever I want to. It has nothing to do with my own language ability but their attitude.