Statistics on Shanghainese usage in home and office - Xinhua

[ala]

"Shanghai likes to talk the talk"

2/12/2005 9:04 Xinhua, Eastday.com

Shanghai residents prefer to speak their own dialect even though most speak fluent mandarin, a survey has found.

The survey by the State Language Commission of China found Shanghainese are more likely than other Chinese to speak their local dialect at home, in the office, or at supermarkets and doctors' consulting rooms.

[standard] Mandarin, known in China as putonghua or "common tongue," was made the standard pronunciation of Chinese language more than 50 years ago.

The survey found only 35 percent of Shanghainese speak mandarin in the office, while the national average use of [standard] mandarin at workplaces is 42 percent.

About 12 percent of Shanghai's residents speak [standard] mandarin at home, opposed to 18 percent nationwide.

Results of the survey have surprised many Chinese linguists because Shanghai has long been considered a "melting pot" and about 35 percent of its population have moved here from other parts of the country.

"Drivers and conductors on Shanghai buses all speak the local dialect, though posters are seen everywhere reminding the residents to speak mandarin," said He Xin, a public servant who's been in Shanghai for seven years. "You're an outsider if you speak mandarin among a group of local Shanghainese." But he said Shanghainese are generally friendly and don't discriminate against people from other parts of China.

Local newspapers have started to discuss how the Shanghainese should make sure future generations still speak their "mother tongue" now that schools have been told to teach mandarin only.

The unique Shanghai dialect is very different from mandarin.

------------

This article actually sounds like bad news to me.... I also read the original Chinese, it sounds like the bureaucrats are surprised their "Promote Mandarin" campaign hasn't worked as well as their expectations for Shanghai (considering that the national averages include rural areas with lower Mandarin proficiency). What's with the quotation marks on "mother tongue"? With these numbers, it's quite a scandal that there is almost no television programming in Shanghainese.

[gato]

A person interviewed in Shanghai by Epoch Times, who's supposedly studying for a PhD in law, said that Shanghai should learn from Taiwan in promoting Shanghainese. Not very politically correct. And if he's been to Taiwan, he'd know the social friction it has caused, too. [Found this through Google News, China edition.]

http://www.epochtimes.com.au/gb/5/1/22/n789614.htm

上海话因使用率下降 面临消亡

【大纪元1月22日报导】（中央社记者彭思舟上海二十二日电）

一名正在上海攻读法学博士的罗姓台生指出，在全球化的浪潮中，保留各地方的本土特色，是创造差异化优势与竞争力的关键，上海人在积极国际化的过程中，也应该要注意保留自己海派文化的特色，才能在全球化的过程中，凸显自己的优势，一如台湾本土意识的兴起与重视、尊重各族群文化的努力，其实是值得上海各界学习的。

About 12 percent of Shanghai's residents speak [standard] mandarin at home, opposed to 18 percent nationwide.

Results of the survey have surprised many Chinese linguists because Shanghai has long been considered a "melting pot" and about 35 percent of its population have moved here from other parts of the country.

These linguists must have their heads in the sand. When I was in school in Shanghai in the 1980s, I knew only one classmate who didn't speak Shanghainese at home. Plus the 12% figure is for speaking "standard" Mandarin at home. The person I knew spoke Shandong-nese at home. That probably doesn't qualify. I wouldn't have expected 12% of people in Shanghai to speak Mandarin at home.

[ala]

People from Mandarin dialect areas (except Southwest Mandarin) tend to speak Standard Mandarin at home. 12% is a very reasonable number, considering Shanghai has absorbed 6 million people (from the entire social ladder) in the past decade, mostly from Mandarin areas. If one parent doesn't speak Shanghainese, that household will also turn into Mandarin-speaking only.

That person who did the interview does speak for a lot of local Shanghainese though. Many Shanghainese would argue that to remain competitive and relevant in a sea of Chinese cities, Shanghainese culture must be more greatly developed. The idea is that cultural identity sells and garners respect, at the same time being highly unifying for local society. This is the exact opposite reasoning to Mandarin promoters who argue that to avoid being marginalized, Shanghainese must be Mandarin-speaking. A balance needs to be made I feel.

[wushijiao]

It seems like dialects can only lose in these sort of studies. Notice it didn't say how many Shanghaiese have the ability to speak putonghua at the office (I'd guesss 90%), instead it said how many do speak a dialect. Question: why would six Shanghaiese people at an office speak putonghua? Why would a family of Shanghaiese speak putonghua? Wouldn't it be more valuable to measure the ability to speak putonghua?

A similar thing happened in a study last year, showing that only half of Chinese people can speak putonghua. That prompted this editorial:

http://www.chinadaily.com.cn/english/doc/2004-12/28/content_403899.htm

[gato]

I see you're really interested in having Shanghai's cultural prestige match its economic prestige. On the economic front, you shouldn't worry because Shanghai will be the top Chinese city of economic importance for a long time to come because of its many advantages.

On the cultural front, I think you're pinning too much hope on using Shanghainese to rejuvenate the culture. Have you seen a decline in Shanghai's cultural vibrancy because the use of Mandarin at home has risen from 0.1% to 12%? I don't the use of Mandarin is a hindrance at all. If anything, it could make the environment more comfortable for outsiders and help attract people talented in the arts to Shanghai. So it seems Shanghai has attracted mostly people who want to make more money. New York City is full of money-hungry people as well, but if that were all there was to NYC, it'll be awfully boring.

Pre-1949, because the relative freedom its foreign concessions offered, it attracted people from all over China, artists, writers, businessmen, and average Joes and Janes. The Shanghai of today can't no longer distinguish itself as a cultural safe haven. Beijing because of Beida and its many other top schools in the arts and humanities will always supercede all other Chinese cities in terms of cultural creativity.

But why can't Shanghai at least match Guangzhou? I read an article by a Shanghainese writer a while ago in which he deplored the poor state of magazine and newspaper industry in Shanghai. He said Beijing had Economic Observer and Caijing (财经）， among others，and Guangzhou has Nanfang Daily and Weekend, but Shanghai has nothing comparable. The use or non-use of a local dialect should be a factor in the health of the written media. Any idea why this would be? Is there a political reason??

[ala]

Obviously there is a major political factor involved. Discussions amongst Shanghainese university students are very vibrant and creative, no less than Beida, and often much more rational and moderate. Guangzhou has more journalistic freedom because of its distance from Beijing (this may not last now though). There is a general disgust of Chinese politics and Beijing amongst the Shanghainese population. Shanghai is still a top choice for artists because of its relative tolerance. 70% of the academic faculties in Beijing's top universities are staffed by people from and around Shanghai (lower Jiangsu region: 苏沪常锡). How do you then explain Shanghai's perceived "cultural decline"? The talent and demand is certainly there, but Shanghai is given no opportunity to harness them itself. The kind of discussions going on amongst Shanghainese intellectuals are also more prone to censorship (and self-censorship), as they tend to be more regionalistic and federalist (relative to China currently being statist).

Of the major cities, Shanghai has the lowest viewership rates for the annual CCTV Spring Festival show. It's gotten so low, several stations do not even broadcast it. Most see it as a Beijing attempting to export its heavily northern brand of Chinese culture. None of my relatives ever bother to watch it, nor do my Shanghainese friends. Many have commented that they will watch a spring festival show produced by Shanghainese themselves and is culturally representative. But that, of course, will not happen. And this is what promoting Shanghainese culture is about. It's more than just about the actual local culture; promoting Shanghainese culture carries with it a new mindset and a new set of values: individualism (including the pursuit of individual identity) and tolerance.

The perceived cultural and political bankruptcy in Shanghai is really the triumph of individualism. And this is why the cultural gap between Shanghai and Beijing is so great.

[gato]

There is a general disgust of Chinese politics and Beijing amongst the Shanghainese population.

Middle America is disgusted with NYC and yet they watch "Friends," "Seinfeld," "Law and Order," and hundreds of other shows based in NYC.

I'm sure people are disgusted with Chinese politics in Beijing, too, even in Zhongnan Hai.

The perceived cultural and political bankruptcy in Shanghai is really the triumph of individualism. And this is why the cultural gap between Shanghai and Beijing is so great.

Depends on what you mean by individualism. If it means the pursuit of materialism to the neglect of all else, then it's not so much of a triumph. But that's a problem everywhere, not just in Shanghai.

[wushijiao]

I read an article by a Shanghainese writer a while ago in which he deplored the poor state of magazine and newspaper industry in Shanghai. He said Beijing had Economic Observer and Caijing (财经）， among others，and Guangzhou has Nanfang Daily and Weekend, but Shanghai has nothing comparable.

As a side track to this discusion, it's worth noting that the World Economic Herald, based out of Shanghai, was shut by Jiang Zemin, then Party Secretary of the city.

[ala]

Depends on what you mean by individualism. If it means the pursuit of materialism to the neglect of all else, then it's not so much of a triumph. But that's a problem everywhere, not just in Shanghai.

That's clearly not what I mean by individualism, and I hardly think the pursuit of materialism is a problem.

Middle America is disgusted with NYC and yet they watch "Friends," "Seinfeld," "Law and Order," and hundreds of other shows based in NYC.

I'm sorry, I don't see how this is related to the discussion. US media is privately owned, there are no bans on local programming. What drives them is demand; while in China it's politics and centralism. The Beijing-Shanghai cultural gap is a couple of magnitudes greater than Middle America vs NYC. Your analogy might be more appropriate if we were talking about Suzhou/Wuxi vs. Shanghai.

I'm sure people are disgusted with Chinese politics in Beijing, too, even in Zhongnan Hai.

This discussion is about cultural hegemony achieved by means of political power; and shouldn't be trivialized by meaningless comments about politics in general, stay on topic please.

[BeijingSlacker]

Dear ala:

I am just wondering if it ever occurs to you that there is a remote possiblity that Beijing has its own culture beside the disgusting communism propaganda or what you see on some of the CCTV programs may not be the most accurate representation of the Beijing culture and the artistic society here, in another word, what has been promoted as the "Beijing culture" through political favor may not be the REAL Beijing culture.

By the way, I am sorry to hear that you and your Shanghainese friends find Beijing disgusting.

[gato]

Now that the government has loosened the household registration system （户口） and allow people to move around more freely，I think it won't be too long, maybe another 20 years, before Mandarin becomes the predominant language used in public in all the major cities? I don't really what language it is, as long as there's at least one common language that everyone's comfortable with. It could be Cantonese as I read that Sun Yatsen had once proposed instead of Mandarin. Maybe people would have been happier if the greedy emperors and bureaucrats hadn't kept on trying to unify "China" into one country but instead had left every warring state to manage its language and culture. But here we're.

[ala]

By the way, I am sorry to hear that you and your Shanghainese friends find Beijing disgusting.

I'm sorry you take it personally.

[ala]

Now that the government has loosened the household registration system （户口） and allow people to move around more freely，I think it won't be too long, maybe another 20 years, before Mandarin becomes the predominant language used in public in all the major cities? I don't really what language it is, as long as there's at least one common language that everyone's comfortable with. It could be Cantonese as I read that Sun Yatsen had once proposed instead of Mandarin. Maybe people would have been happier if the greedy emperors and bureaucrats hadn't kept on trying to unify "China" into one country but instead had left every warring state to manage its language and culture. But here we're.

No wonder the majority of Taiwanese don't want to unify; if I were Taiwanese, I wouldn't either. I am definitely not against a common language for China, don't misunderstand me. The problem is that I don't think promoting Mandarin should be in conflict with preserving and developing dialects simultaneously. From the article above, we sense that the government clearly thinks the two are opposing forces. Speaking a dialect in the comforts of my home with my family doesn't mean my Mandarin proficiency is poor. Putonghua was meant to be a common language of China, not the only language of China. China being one state doesn't mean it must have only one language, there are many states in Europe that tolerate multiple official or unofficial languages. Instead of spending all their funding playing overkill against dialects in major urban areas, perhaps better use of that money should have gone to making Mandarin proficiency higher in the rural areas. The local dialect should be introduced in schools so that students gain a more enriched insight into the Chinese language and develop a better fondness of their 家乡. Instead there is not a single academic mention of dialects in the Chinese primary and secondary education system. This disguised Orweillian language policy of China is a major cramp on Chinese creativity and a significant source of collective apathy towards Chinese culture.

[Cyberian]

No wonder the majority of Taiwanese don't want to unify; if I were Taiwanese, I wouldn't either. I am definitely not against a common language for China, don't misunderstand me.

I am misunderstanding you.

Are you saying that the reason why the majority of Taiwanese doesn't want reunification is because if they did, Mandarin would be promoted?

[ala]

I am misunderstanding you.

Are you saying that the reason why the majority of Taiwanese doesn't want reunification is because if they did' date=' Mandarin would be promoted?[/quote']

??? Yes, you are misunderstanding me, and your comment makes no logical sense based on what I had said and the context given.

There isn't a cause and effect relationship between my first and second sentences. The first sentence (about Taiwan) referred to gato's comment: "Maybe people would have been happier if the greedy emperors and bureaucrats hadn't kept on trying to unify "China" into one country but instead had left every warring state to manage its language and culture. But here we're." Taiwan is able to keep its independence from the Mainland on MANY factors, including cultural, and is one modern example where the "greedy emperor's" influence hasn't reached politically. The political culture in Taiwan consequently has allowed for a more flexible language policy today. In no way have I narrowed myself with the converse into implying that Taiwan doesn't want unification because of Mainland language policy. The second sentence was to clarify with gato that I support the promotion of Mandarin, but not at the cost of deliberately suppressing dialects, because I agree with his other points on posts in the past about the benefits of Mandarin.

lots of senseless knee-jerk reactions here....

[BeijingSlacker]

I am definitely not against a common language for China, don't misunderstand me. The problem is that I don't think promoting Mandarin should be in conflict with preserving and developing dialects simultaneously. From the article above, we sense that the government clearly thinks the two are opposing forces. Speaking a dialect in the comforts of my home with my family doesn't mean my Mandarin proficiency is poor. Putonghua was meant to be a common language of China, not the only language of China. China being one state doesn't mean it must have only one language, there are many states in Europe that tolerate multiple official or unofficial languages. Instead of spending all their funding playing overkill against dialects in major urban areas, perhaps better use of that money should have gone to making Mandarin proficiency higher in the rural areas. The local dialect should be introduced in schools so that students gain a more enriched insight into the Chinese language and develop a better fondness of their 家乡. Instead there is not a single academic mention of dialects in the Chinese primary and secondary education system. This disguised Orweillian language policy of China is a major cramp on Chinese creativity and a significant source of collective apathy towards Chinese culture.

Firstly, there isn't one single sentence in the above statement of yours that I do not agree with fully. I also think that we should preserve even those very small dialects. (not to mention the big ones like Cantonese and Shanghainese) Schools should have dialects and other regional/cultural traditions integrated into their curricula.

BeijingSlacker wrote:

By the way, I am sorry to hear that you and your Shanghainese friends find Beijing disgusting.

I'm sorry you take it personally.

Secondly, no, I did not take it personally.

What upset me is not the fact that you dislike/resent Beijing. Beijing's culture and people definitely have a lot of character, in part due to its status as China's capital for most of the past 800 years and its high concentration of officials and notables. It's quite natural and common for people outside Beijing to really love it or hate it. I myself don't like quite of few aspects of Beijing.

What did upset me is misunderstanding of Beijing like the below:

Obviously there is a major political factor involved.

Of the major cities, Shanghai has the lowest viewership rates for the annual CCTV Spring Festival show. It's gotten so low, several stations do not even broadcast it. Most see it as a Beijing attempting to export its heavily northern brand of Chinese culture.

The perceived cultural and political bankruptcy in Shanghai is really the triumph of individualism. And this is why the cultural gap between Shanghai and Beijing is so great.

The annual CCTV Spring Festival show, which is truely an insult to audience's intelligence, does not showcase BEIJING culture. Beijingers would not like those redneck comedians like Zhao Benshan? It seems to me that you don't know anything about its culture. If Beijingers were to export their culture, you would see people like Cuijian, Jiangwen, Douwei, Heyong,Wangshuo, who, not surprisingly, never made it to the show. These are the people in pop-culture who enjoy nation-wide popularity and are labelled as Beijingers and who can represent Beijing's pop-culture. Intead, they have all suffered heavy censorship.

Yes, thanks to the political favor they did to Beijing, our native Beijinger Cuijian, the Godfather of the Chinese Rock and idol of generations of Beijingers, has been banned from holding his own concert in his hometown for 15 years; and thanks to the political favor, Wangshuo, whose talking style are still mimiced by Beijing youth even today, is described by the authorities as 'spiritual pollutant' and has to heavily modify almost all his works before publishing (still banned in many cases) and has his award-winning film "I am your dad" banned; Beijing actor/movie maker Jiangwen has his brilliant "Devil on the door step" banned, which has also brought him quite a lot trouble. Thanks to the favor, numerous gathering and salons for young artists in Beijing are cancelled. This list can go as long as you want.

About individualism, Beijing is undoubtedly the center of Chinese rock'n roll, which would not happen if Beijing's culture was against individualism as you might've thought. Among other Beijing Beijing writers, Wang Shuo and Wang Xiaobo are all typically seen as "very Beijing" and they enjoy great popularity in Beijing. Their works all involves lots of heavy mockery of the collectivism and Confucian culture. Do you get to see these real things of Beijing culture on CCTV? Obviously no.

I am not denying that the promotion of Mandarin makes easier the spread of Beijing culture in China. However, it also has seriously suffered from politics, heavy censorship being one example. On numerous occasions, I heard Beijing artists say they wish Beijing wasn't the capital so that they could enjoy a freer atomsphere. So NO, WHAT YOU SAW AND WHAT YOU HAVE BEEN DIRECTING YOUR ANGER AT IS NOT THE REAL BEIJING CULTURE.

[gato]

An op-ed from China Times about the cultural division between "Taiwanese" and "non-Taiwanese" (with pinyin and English translation c/o Popjisyo.com)

Original URL: http://news.chinatimes.com/Chinatimes/newslist/newslist-content/0%2C3546%2C110514+112005022000216%2C00.html

2005.02.20　 中國時報

童年與想像 (Childhood and Imagination)

黃榮村

小時在員林鄉下念了十二年書，很多外省囝仔與外省老師台語講得溜得很，平常在一起玩也沒什麼感覺，祇有當上一代偶爾講起誰嫁給那個外省人時，帶點神秘而已。當時幾乎每個人家境都不好，互相幫忙的機會倒是很多。老友陳浩這個南部來的外省囝仔，寫了一本《一二三，到台灣》，讀了之後，童年的回憶一下子全出來了，他寫的活生生就是我們當年的生活。換到今天，倒是我們這些離鄉背井到台北的中南部台灣人後代，講起台語來像外國人，令人受不了。更嚴重的，每屆選舉，本省、外省的區分似乎一下子又醒目起來，但事後再看，又好像沒事一般。這幾年好像變得比較嚴重，應該是與五十多年來第一次政黨輪替下的不適應有關，也許慢慢又會好轉吧。

一位外省朋友的父親曾講過這樣有智慧的話：台灣人難以理解外省人的焦慮與不安，外省人也難以體會本省人的悲情。早期外省人歷經戰亂之後的流離失所，心中有很濃的「概化性焦慮」（ generalized anxiety與害怕不同，因為並非有特定的害怕對象），這是一種具有普遍性又講不清楚的不安。早期台灣人則在長期殖民與威權統治下，更有濃得化不開的悲情，是一種「習得的無助」（learned helplessness），發現在制度性的牢籠中，再怎麼想辦法好像也無濟於事。隨著時間以及社會的進步，其實已事過境遷，但當年的人還是固著的認為別人不可能了解自己「第一人稱」的深層感情。研究心靈與意識現象的學術圈中流行一句話：「身為蝙蝠的悲哀是什麼？」（What isit like to be a bat？）亦即這種第一人稱的經驗，外人如何能穿透蝙蝠的心理狀態來進行理解？前總統李登輝說的「身為台灣人的悲哀」，大概也就是這個意思。基本上，這種想法是沒錯，但是假如雙方堅持到一定程度，旁邊又有政客在火上加油時，這種情緒可能會被增強到脫離現實的地步，開始出現指責對方不知悔改、鴨霸、勾結、陰謀切斷文化傳統等令人皺眉頭的話語。

人間條件往往形塑一個人的特定意識形態，讓人的想法愈來愈不同，這是無可如何之處，有人認為溝通與互信才是治療良方。話是沒錯，但若小時候沒有和睦相處的經驗，長大就缺了一個平台。現在的省籍與族群紛爭，除了是選舉的政治操作外，有相當程度是老一代之間的矛盾，過去歷史的恩怨該結清的就去做吧，但下一代實在沒必要去蹚這池混水。所以中小學的教育就變得很重要，像鄉土語言與教材的共同學習，其實也是培養共同生活經驗的一種，甚至可拉近上下幾代的感情，沒什麼好反對的，增加台灣史地的道理亦同。但是在推動這些事務時，也不必採用肅殺的語言，或賦以沉重的意義與使命感，這樣做反而會讓這些事情連上意識形態或過去被扭曲的歷史，變成是大家不可承受的重。中小學生應該輕輕鬆鬆的學會這些，不要弄得太難、盯得太緊（縱使學數學與科學，也不能這樣），學生們花時間共同發現台灣鄉土之樂之美，共同了解古中國的文化傳統，長大之後，自然會在有共同背景的平台上對話。想想看，當大家有共同的語言與經驗時，沒事還會弄翻桌子，吵得左鄰右舍不安寧嗎？若有這種人，大概就是政治動物吧！

John Lennon一首歌〈想像〉中有一段：想想假若人們都無私欲／我懷疑你是否能夠做到／不須憂傷更無饑饉／四海之內無非兄弟，想想假若所有的人民／共同分享這世界。想想，相處之道有這麼嚴重嗎？我祇懷疑你願不願意去做！

（作者為淡大教授）（本專欄不代表本報立場）

[Harpoon]

Maybe people would have been happier if the greedy emperors and bureaucrats hadn't kept on trying to unify "China" into one country but instead had left every warring state to manage its language and culture. But here we're.

What would you have preffered?

off topic: "here we're"?? I guess the "we're" makes sense since you can technically contract it.. but I've never heard it used like that, its always "here we are", we're is pretty much exlusively used in verb form, "are" being the "to be" verb. Are you a native english speaker?

[Quest]

It could be Cantonese as I read that Sun Yatsen had once proposed instead of Mandarin.

I think he proposed the contrary, but it's all speculation. Did he really?

[Claw]

It could be Cantonese as I read that Sun Yatsen had once proposed instead of Mandarin.

I think he proposed the contrary, but it's all speculation. Did he really?

No, I'm pretty sure that's a myth. The southern dialects were never really contenders for a national language because Mandarin speakers outnumbered all the southern dialect speakers combined in addition to the fact that Mandarin had also been historically used in government. Southerners during these standardization conferences in early 20th century did argue that Mandarin lost many of the features that the southern dialects had preserved from Middle Chinese, however they never were really able to make much headway in convincing northerners that Mandarin shouldn't be the national language.

Basically the main debate focused on the choice between using Mandarin as the national language or having each region decide on their own language. Cantonese was never seriously proposed for the national language though. The proponents of having regional languages felt that by having Mandarin as the national language, many southerners would end up being relegated to second-class citizens. However, they were often accused of being separatists and had already started losing ground by the 1930s. Their fate was sealed by the time the communists took power in the 1950s.