Cantonese on demise?

[Ian_Lee]

Does anybody notice that the Cantonese language is on demise in Mainland China?

According to an article I read in bbs.peopledaily.com, Cantonese language is deliberately suppressed there.

Guangdong's top brass -- Provincial Party Secretary Zhang De Jiang -- is a non-Cantonese and educated in North Korea. Of course, Zhang doesn't speak Cantonese. Provincial Governor Huang Hua Hua is a local boy. But he only speaks heavy-accented Putonghua in front of the media.

All over the schools in Guangdong, the teachers only use Putonghua in class.

Out of the eight radio channels based in Shenzhen, only the Zhujiang Economic Channel devoted part-time in Cantonese broadcasting. All the others are in Putonghua.

All the TV networks based in Guangdong broadcast in Putonghua.

Moreover, due to the recent large influx of out-of-province population, Guangzhou has been transformed to a semi-Cantonese City while Shenzhen becomes a Putonghua metropolis.

Just 10 years ago, Cantonese is the lingua franca in the southern part of Guangxi like Nanning. Nowadays hardly anybody speaks Cantonese there.

Ironically now people in Guangdong look towards Hong Kong to preserve the indigenous Cantonese language and culture.

[Quest]

I am not all that happy about what's happened in Guangzhou. Because of the infrastructure building, a lot of original Guangzhou people have been relocated to the suburbs, therefore leaving migrant workers in the city centers. More and more influx of mandarin speaking people are infiltrating the city and its top positions, because of these people's connections to the central government. It was outrageous sometime ago that a columnist from 羊城晚报, one of Guangzhou's indigenous and most widely read paper talked about "the arrogance of Guangzhou people for not speaking Mandarin" and that "speaking in a 方言 is 不文明和落后的表现. " and it "caused a lot of trouble for her" an obvious 外省人。 So she suggested we all speak her language to make life easier for her. That article angered a lot of Guangzhou natives. The TV stations in Guangzhou dont make much sense either. They imported HongKong TV programs and dramas then they TRANSLATED and dubbed them into Mandarin as if we couldn't understand the original Cantonese version. So we all switched to watching HK channels, and the local stations have probably 1% local audience right now. We wouldn't mind speaking in Mandarin if they cannot understand us, but shouldn't they be more humble as guests in our city. I mean all young people know Mandarin really well now, so we can communicate effectively with the whole country, there's really no further need to press to the extinction of the local tongue.

[skylee]

So you guys do watch HK TV. Which is your favourit programme? Right now 衝上雲霄 is quite hot.

In 無間道 III, mainland actor 陳道明 asks 梁朝偉 and 黎明 to speak in Guoyu (funny he doesn't say Putonghua), the two oblige smilingly by saying two sentences hardly rolling their tongues, then very happily switch back to Cantonese. I think this is our attitude.

Do not worry. We in Hong Kong, including our Chief Executive, still speak very poor Putonghua and it is quite unlikely that we will give up Cantonese in the foreseeable future.

[Quest]

both衝上雲霄and西关大少are虎头蛇尾，越做越走样,是近年来最差的台庆剧。

All cantonese speakers in guangzhou and their children still speak cantonese at home and outside of classes. There are 6 million natives, so it will be sometime before they can convert everyone into mandarin speaking, however as far as I know most of us are bound to resist the change. Although, it is sometimes annoying that we go into shops and restaurants, many of the service people do not speak cantonese. Before the early 90s that was never the case. All TV stations were broadcast in Cantonese and everybody u met spoke your the local tongue perfectly. I dont mind migrant workers coming into the city, although I would not prefer it, but don't kill our language please.

[Ian_Lee]

Skylee:

CH Tung is a Shanghai native. When he speaks in Cantonese, he carries a heavy accent.

Actually it is amazing that as a melting pot, Hong Kong can transform immigrants from Beijing, Shanghai, India, ........into all Cantonese speakers.

When I watched Jiang Zemin or Zhu Rongji or Hu Jintao sitting quietly to listen speeches in Cantonese in HK, I can't help laughing!

Cantonese in Hong Kong has been infused with new life!

[pazu]

In 無間道 III' date=' mainland actor 陳道明 asks 梁朝偉 and 黎明 to speak in Guoyu (funny he doesn't say Putonghua), the two oblige smilingly by saying two sentences hardly rolling their tongues, then very happily switch back to Cantonese. I think this is our attitude.

.[/quote']

So you have seen this movie? I saw it yesterday and it was crap. Very much disappointed, the story was quite good but I think the team just wasted that. What a pity!

[pazu]

Speaking of Cantonese in Guangzhou, I think it's not as bad as it may sound on the media. When most people found it an identity to speak a language, it won't be dead. Wang Huahua may speak distorted Putonghua on TV, but ask him and I think he would say he spent most of his time speaking Cantonese. Don't be paranoid!

[Quest]

HK managed to convert them because the media is in cantonese, and the government is mostly cantonese. more and more not so in guangzhou

[skylee]

Pazu, I don't find the movie is that bad. Actually I don't dislike it at all. Am going to watch it again tomorrow (am too simple-minded to understand the plot properly).

[Quest]

http://forum.ycwb.net/search.php?action=showresults&searchid=41153&sortby=&sortorder=

I've found the discussion about that article published on 羊城晚报 about how Guangzhou should not speak Cantonese. the article is titled 《自恋方言非大度》

Quote some of the reactions:

“我普通话讲得很好，但去到外地一样不是一样听不懂？？广州人团结起来反抗！！ 这么个SB报！冲这个，我明年发动广州人改订XX日报”

“等我番广州之后叫屋企吾七订距！甘搞法，简直令全广州人嬲系死距！”

“我说不能放任广东本地的媒体对广东进行恶意攻击，你们还说不能掩盖弊端，让媒体“自主”，现在好了，出了这种文章，问你们还是否愿意加强对媒体的管理？！”

“写一篇咁0既垃圾文章,不能规劝到广东人学国语不单止,还伤害了广大粤人的感情,炒咗佢啦! 否则真系要抵制晚报,净睇日报算了.”

“本来认为此种文章只系小人之作，不屑一晒，但实在难忍其素质之低下，此种小毛都能在颇具影响力的“晕包”大放厥词，那么此“晕包”的管理水平一定水皮的很！坚决抵制“晕包”！”

[pazu]

Pazu, I don't find the movie is that bad. Actually I don't dislike it at all. Am going to watch it again tomorrow (am too simple-minded to understand the plot properly).

You're the only guy I know so far who wants to see this movie again.

[roddy]

movie

movie

movie

I'm sure there's a movie forum around here somewhere

What about in terms of culture - is there an identifiable 'Cantonese' cultural heritage in terms of books / poems / plays that are clearly not Mandarin? Is this something historical, or is it still developing?

Roddy

[Guest Anonymous]

Ironically, it will ultimately be the OC (Overseas Cantonese) who preserve the language. Overseas Cantonese outnumber overseas Taiwanese and Mainlanders by a whopping 5 to 1 margin, so outside of China, Mandarin has little use in Chinese enclaves. Most Mandarin people who do business with Chinese in the States must learn Cantonese. Here in Northern California, I run into many more Cantonese than Mandarin people, especially in San Francisco, which is more or less little HK. San Francisco is more HK'ey than Vancouver and Toronto combined.

Growing up in the Bay Area, I didn't even know there was such a thing as Mandarin. In fact, I thought the majority of Chinese people spoke Cantonese. On the rare occassion that we did run into Mandarin people, they were always Taiwanese. In our minds, the only two Chinese groups were HK and Taiwanese.

Yes, we did ignore that little country to the west with over 1 billion in population, but to us, China was just some remote, podunk third world nation not even worth mentioning. HK is our motherland, not China.

ABC's are taking over the media in HK as well. Mandy Cho is from San Francisco. So is Daniel Wu. The list of American/Canadian born stars is extensive - Edison/Tricia, Michael/Russell/Declan Wong, Christy, etc.

[Amdir_Flassion]

i so agree with u homsuplo!

And this is the case in where I come from too - Australia. The most recent census I can remember shows that Canto speakers outnumber Mando ones by at least 8:1 It's prob coz most Chinese immigrants come from Guangdong Province, HK, Malaysia and Vietnam where Canto is commonly spoken in those places

Even tho' there's been a trend towards 'Mandarinisation' in the Chinese community recently, Cantonese is still at least on a par with Mandarin here, and will continue to be so in the future. Chinese schools usually have 2 streams - one for Canto and one for Mando. Radio stations have broadcasts in both dialects, though the Canto broadcasts tend to be more hip and play more music (even more Mando songs) than the Mandarin broadcasts. And in our TVB satellite TV service, u can only get local Aussie news broadcasted in Canto for now.

Besides, there are more gwei-lo who can say 'gung hei fat choi' than 'gong xi fa cai'

It really surprises some ppl i know who come from China and Singapore, where use of dialect is not encouraged and are given the perception that Mandarin is universal in every Chinese community.

But I'm not anti-Mando. In fact, I quite like it's politeness and its use in pop songs like Jay Zhou's. My point is, one dialect doesn't need to be sacrificed for the promotion of another. I say, the more dialects you can speak, the better!

[Quest]

Yes, we did ignore that little country to the west with over 1 billion in population, but to us, China was just some remote, podunk third world nation not even worth mentioning. HK is our motherland, not China.

I am sure you will re-learn what that "little country" is about within your life time.

[Quest]

ABC's are taking over the media in HK as well. Mandy Cho is from San Francisco. So is Daniel Wu. The list of American/Canadian born stars is extensive - Edison/Tricia, Michael/Russell/Declan Wong, Christy, etc.

They probably have an exotic appeal to the HK audience, but they are not taking over the media. Some of them barely speak Cantonese that I find it more 辛苦 to listen to them than they are to speak it.

[Guest Anonymous]

ABC's are taking over the media in HK as well. Mandy Cho is from San Francisco. So is Daniel Wu. The list of American/Canadian born stars is extensive - Edison/Tricia, Michael/Russell/Declan Wong, Christy, etc.

They probably have an exotic appeal to the HK audience, but they are not taking over the media. Some of them barely speak Cantonese that I find it more 辛苦 to listen to them than they are to speak it.

Well, Daniel Wu's Cantonese is bad because he is actually Shanghainese. Also, Michael Wong is only half Cantonese. Christy Chung is Viet/Chinese. However, Mandy Cho, Edison Chen, Nic Tse, Stephen Fung, etc. speak Cantonese perfectly well.

[Guest snow]

Nicholas Tse and Edison Chen can speak Cantonese fluently because they aren't entirely grow up outside HK. I've read that's Nic went to USA when he was 10 or so due to media attention but after a few years he's already back in HK. His parent are actors. He's released his first cd when he was 16 if i remembered correctly. And Edison has gone to a private school in HK where he was being taught in English though. So their basic language skills are already "set". I don't know about the others.

And it's also due to these Beauty pageant contests in HK there are so many Chinese from outside HK/China in the entertainment biz.

[smithsgj]

I don't understand why these beauty pageants would particularly attract people of Chinese ethnic origin. Or is it that the pageants are simply not open to black or white women?

[Guest snow]

I'm meaning miss HK or miss ATV or whatever. And there's one who only Chinese people from outside HK/China can participate. So only Chinese or partcially Chinese ppl can participate in these contests. And what's real rediculous is people who don't speak Chinese can participate too. I saw a long time ago miss HK 96? and there was an Chinese American whose Cantonese excist of only a couple of words. I mean oh my, you should at least expect for someone who's in a miss HK contest can speak some Cantonese. It doesn't have to be fluently.