White guy speaking Shanhaiese on Streets of Shanghai - Hilarious

[studychinese]

On youtube -

 

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eFMg6a19YiI

[Hofmann]

About as hilarious as an Asian guy speaking AAVE. You know, gangsta Azns?

[studychinese]

Hofmann, what is hilarious is the reactions of the Chinese people on the street, not the fact that a white guy is able to speak a foreign language. Pretty sure that we are over that here.

[msittig]

Hilarious? He's trying to speak Shanghainese to people who are not from Shanghai! A full 4/5s of the people he talked to on the street were clearly not native Shanghainese speakers, probably new to Shanghai, and clueless as to what he was saying!! It's like trying to speak French to people in New Orleans, or old English to current Londoners. I thought it was pretty cringeworthy myself.

 

And once they hit the toungue-twisters I couldn't watch anymore...

 

Good on him for learning (I tried and failed myself) but once again the lesson I learned over the years is reinforced: don't go on Chinese TV.

[anonymoose]

I thought it was pretty cringeworthy also. Well, I didn't even open the link, but I assume it's the same one that's being going around for years. What's the point of approaching non-Shanghainese people to speak Shanghainese if not but to disguise how bad your language is? Post a video of you having a full conversation with an authentic old aiyi first and then we've something to talk about. 鉴定完毕.

[Takeshi]

I actually think it was pretty interesting (not the on the streets, but the chatting with the reporters). His Shanghainese seemed pretty damn good. (Of course I can't judge his accent because I don't know Shanghainese) But he seemed fairly fluent in it and could hold the conversation with the announcers.

 

It was the first time I ever heard Shanghainese. So it was kind of interesting to me.

 

I think the on the streets thing he was trying to make a political message about how people on the streets didn't understand Shanghainese or something? I have no idea. Shanghainese seems it would be really hard to learn because it's not really used on the streets anymore I guess, and this video really made that clear. (Like I dunno, compared to other places, where maybe Mandarin might be the default language people actually initiate conversations with, most people would be able to react in dialect if needed; guess not in Shanghai.)

[imron]

But he seemed fairly fluent in it and could hold the conversation with the announcers.

People who couldn't speak Mandarin said the same thing about Mark Zuckerberg.

[DongLian]

Well first off, how does one 'tell' if someone is native Shanghainese or not other than hearing them speak first, which is unlikely if he's stopping them.

 

I think he sounds pretty good and while I don't speak Shanghainese, I hear it ALL the time.  My husband is Shanghainese and speaks that with his parents.

 

EDIT: I wonder if they're trying to show the Shanghai dialect is dying, even in Shanghai with the large influx of foreigners (non-Shanghainese) into the city.  This is a common complaint by Shanghai people that too many outsiders are coming in.  (according to husband and his Shanghai friends)

[anonymoose]

how does one 'tell' if someone is native Shanghainese or not other than hearing them speak first

 

Of course you can never be 100% sure, but if you've spent any time in Shanghai, you will get a good feel for who is and who isn't Shanghainese.

 

Firstly, most of the older generation are Shanghainese. Younger people could be either, but this also depends on region. For example, young people in the outskirts are more likely to be Shanghainese than in, say, Lujiazui.

 

Secondly, dress, stature and comportment give a good clue. I don't want to open a can of worms here, so I'm not going to point out the differences individually.

 

Thirdly, what the person is doing also gives a good idea. Security guards, traffic attendants, some chains of convenience store clerks (Liangyou, for example), taxi drivers, bus drivers, bus ticket sellers and so on are nearly always Shanghainese. On the other hand, hair salon workers and building site labourers, for example, are usually never Shanghainese.

 

The person in the video could easily have asked a Shanghainese person if he had wanted to. In fact, it seems that he went out of his way not to.