Mandarin, simplified characters, pinyin in Hong Kong/Macao, Singapore and S.E. Asia

[atitarev]

Mandarin in Hong Kong, Macao, Singapore and South-East Asia.

Things I’d like to discuss – Mandarin (Putonghua), simplified characters and Hanyu Pinyin and their current role outside mainland China (not only your personal attitude but the rules).

Can we discuss the role of Mandarin in non-Mandarin Chinese environment? I am especially interested in S.A.R’s (Hong Kong/Macao), Singapore and in Chinese communities in South-East Asia.

As far as I know, they teach Mandarin with simplified characters in Singapore and pinyin. Can you confirm this. Is Mandarin the main Chinese dialect taught in Singapore?

Is Mandarin taking over other dialects? Is it being imposed? What’s its role in education? I heard, more Mandarin is required in Hong Kong/Macao since the handovers in 1997/1999 and schooling is done in Mandarin and some Universities now have imported Mandarin-speaking Chinese. Are simplified characters used outside the PRC, e. g. at schools/universities? I know, they are rejected by many people outside mainland China.

Is Mandarin required for government jobs?

Very interested to hear from people who actually live in those areas but you’re welcome if you know something.

Also, I heard Taiwan changed the rule for writing. Official documents will now be written horizontally, not vertically, same as on the continent. What are the current rules for that in other Chinese communities.

[Jive Turkey]

Is Mandarin taking over other dialects? Is it being imposed? What’s its role in education? I heard, more Mandarin is required in Hong Kong/Macao since the handovers in 1997/1999 and schooling is done in Mandarin and some Universities now have imported Mandarin-speaking Chinese. Are simplified characters used outside the PRC, e. g. at schools/universities? I know, they are rejected by many people outside mainland China

I wouldn't say Mandarin is "taking over" in Hong Kong. It's definitely not being "imposed." HK people's Mandarin is slowly getting better, though. I've noticed that in the three years I've been here. There hasn't been a huge change, but service industry workers' ability to communicate in Putonghua has definitely gotten better. Unless I'm on HK Island, I almost always speak Putonghua with strangers and usually have no problem getting things done with them. Sometimes a bit of patience is required.

Hardly any Mandarin is required in schools here. Since around 1998, children have gotten about 3 forty minute lessons in Mandarin a week until Form 3. 95%+ of all kids are taught Chinese through Cantonese. Kids are definitely getting better in Mandarin, but most aren't very strong in it. Only a very small minority of schools teach most subjects in Mandarin. There just aren't enough teachers who are proficient in Mandarin to staff more of these kinds of schools. Most Mandarin teachers in primary and secondary schools are native Cantonese speakers who have gotten a 2b or better on the PSC. Some are near native, whereas some aren't so good. Universities and schools of continuing education have a preference for native Putonghua speakers. Sometimes that preference is blind as maindlanders often believe the notion that since it's their first language, they can teach it. Lots of mainlanders get jobs in tertiary education without having any practical teaching qualifications. Many of these people got to HK through marriage or other family ties and only went into teaching Mandarin because it was the easiest thing for them to get into career wise. I imagine HK could get better qualified mainland teachers if it were easier to get visas for mainland workers. Right now, that's a bit difficult.

Mandarin is not smothering out Cantonese in HK. If anything, one could argue that the government is not doing a very good job of promoting it. The trend in primary and secondary schools now is that all Chinese teachers will have to have either a degree in Chinese or a new (and very poorly implemented) qualification called a Post-graduate Diploma in Subject Knowledge for Chinese Teachers. They also have to get a Post-graduate Diploma in Education. Putonghua coursework isn't required for any of these. Some Chinese students take a good bit of Putonghua as elective in Uni, but rarely are graduates with Chinese degrees or diplomas good enough in Putonghua to get the minimum PSC score required for teaching it, which is a 2b. Most of the people I know who have gotten a 2b or above prepared on their own and spent at least a few months at BLCU, BNU or another mainland course provider.

In my opinion, Mandarin will eventually replace Cantonese as the classroom language in HK. It will probably take a very long time, but it will happen. If present practices and trends continue, it won't be because of any strong arm tactics by the Putonghua promotion crowd or Beijing. It will be because the vast majority of HK people don't care about developing Cantonese into a high language. They never have. When the Brits were here, HKers took English as their high language, and in the future, they will almost certainly choose Mandarin as their high language.

[Jive Turkey]

I forgot to answer two of your questions. Putonghua definitely helps when applying for government work, but it is not required. They definitely don't ask for a PSC score.

Traditional characters are still the standard here. Almost no locally published materials are in simplified characters. Kids often write some simplified characters in their schoolwork, but teachers generally discourage it.

[skylee]

Cantonese is still the major teaching language in primary and middle/secondary schools (except for "International" schools). Hong Kong people are more concerned about their children's English proficiency rather than Mandarin proficiency. Schools are fighting for the right to teach in English instead of Cantonese. The focus is not on Mandarin, which is taught as one of the subjects (with exceptions, of course). But the Catholic HK Diocese has recently announced that it would adopt Putonghua as the teaching language of Chinese in its primary schools -> 天主教區小學 普通話英語教授中英文.

For universities, I think it is quite common for lectures to be delivered in either English or Cantonese or Mandarin or a combination of them (it was common back in the days when I was an undergraduate). My own experience at the Chinese University of HK was that textbooks in simplified Chinese were sometimes used, especially for sociology subjects. Reading them was painful, but not unmanageable.

After the handover, people's ability in Mandarin and simplified Chinese has improved (one of the reasons being that there are many immigrants from China, the other being that there are more tourists from China and we need to serve them well to earn their money). But there are exceptions (a lot of them). There are people (e.g. older people) who are unwilling to learn/use them. A few months ago I had to arrange a job for a secretary and it didn't work out as the job required the secretary to be able to speak in Mandarin and the lady claimed that she could not even sing Teresa Tang.

Although people's acceptance for Mandarin/simplified characters has improved (government websites are all available in English/Traditional Chinese/Simplified Chinese and most public announcements like on trains and in theatres are in Cantonese and English and Mandarin), I would say there is no sign that Mandarin is taking over Cantonese in HK. I recently found that an information paper of the Legislative Council I was reading had three versions (English/Traditional Chinese/Simplified Chinese), and my immediate reaction was that it was really unnecessary.

And stupid things like this happened ->

a district court judge ruled a defendant's statement inadmissible because ICAC agents were incapable of communicating with him in putonghua or simplified Chinese characters

廉署證供又被撤 被告脫罪 調查員普通話不純正 通知書缺簡體字版

Sorry that this is not well-organised.

[Jive Turkey]

Interesting link, Skylee. Throwing out a case because a suspect wasn't given his rights in simplified characters seems like BS to me, especially if the suspect had been a resident in HK for any length of time. If non-natives can handle both simplified and traditional, then I see not reason why a HK resident from the mainland can't.

[skylee]

well what can you do

[gato]

Take the Hu Jiahua case before a district court yesterday. Hu was a director of Nanyang Brothers Tobacco Company. The ICAC agents who interviewed him were not sufficiently proficient in putonghua, and they failed to produce a copy of the notice concerning detainees' rights in simplified Chinese characters. As a result, the defendant did not exercise his right to legal representation. He was released in court.

The director of a company didn't contact his lawyer because he couldn't read traditional Chinese script? That's laughable. I guess there must be a law the requires such notices to be in both simplified and traditional script. But that can't be ground for throwing out the case completely. The prosecutor can always appeal.

[Jive Turkey]

I'm wondering which judge heard that case. Was it a non-Chinese speaker? It wouldn't surprise me if a non-Chinese speaker was willing to allow such a bullshit argument about not being able to read traditional characters. Even so, I agree with gato. How in the hell does someone who doesn't even have the sense to call a solicitor when talking to the ICAC become the director of a company? My boss was once interviewed by the ICAC, and it was clear to all that he was just being questioned as a witness. Nevertheless, he still had his solicitor with him.

[roddy]

Not at all possible he exploited a legal loophole? If there's a legal requirement for information to be presented to you in a language you understand, and the HK legal system distinguishes between Mandarin / Cantonese and Simplifed / Traditional, then this is exactly what should have happened surely - ok, in this case the guy is surely playing the system, but if it was say a migrant worker from the mainland, or a maid from whereever, who hadn't been able to understand the legal process because of langauge difficulties then this would look a lot more reasonable.

Add into that the fact that the law needs to treat all equally, and fault lies not with the judge or the man in question, but with whoever handled the case and failed to make it watertight.

[gato]

About Singapore: they do use Mandarin and the simplified script there. Apparently they started the bilingual education program in 1965. I believe Malay and Hindu students can choose to study their own languages. I met a few Singaporean students in college in the US. They still seem to be more fluent in English than in Mandarin.

http://www.channelnewsasia.com/stories/singaporelocalnews/view/111234/1/.html

Mr Lee [former prime minister Lee Kuan Yew] said: "My friends tell me, including Mr Lim Kim San that if my children had not become bilingual, this problem would not become so serious. Because I thought they could do it, well other people's children should be able to do it. Even though it may not be to the same level.

"So when we started in 1965, we tried to achieve the maximum for both, not recognising that in the case of the Chinese, both English which is our working language and the language of instruction in schools and the language of government, are not their mother tongues, both are really second and third languages, because most spoke dialects at home."

But Mr Lee has no regrets pushing for high standards for the past 40 years - otherwise mother tongue standards would have slipped much earlier.

Mr Lee said: "Most important is do not turn the student off, which is what we have succeeded in doing, by forcing them to achieve the standard, we have turned off one generation. Which is a great pity, they are fed up, they are forced by their parents, they are forced by their schools. They hate it. They want to have nothing more to do with it, which I think is a tragedy. I never considered that point, because I did not come across such people, but it was happening....

Mr Lee said: "I brought the other language groups to assure them that we are not going back to Chinese. This is only for special specific purposes, and we will do whatever we are doing for the Chinese, for the Malays, for the Indians, for the others. And as a cosmopolitan hub, we must have the ability to reach out to China, to India, another very big growing economy and to the region around us...

Mr Lee said: "If we lose our international connections, our ability to link up with other people in other languages, we are losers. So that's our strength. But the custodians of the Chinese language are not us, that's China. We are just users of the language."

[Jive Turkey]

But Roddy, as far as I know, there is no such law in HK that distinguishes between simplified and traditional characters. Also, as far as I know, this witness was not forced to give a statement to the ICAC without legal counsel. He made no request for an interpreter either. If this is the standard that is going to be followed in the future, then a mainlander could allow himself to be interrogated, without an interpreter, by someone who you and I may consider to speak good enough Putonghua, but then the mainlander may later claim that the discussion was unintelligible to him just because he wasn't interviewed by someone with native-like proficiency. I'm very curious about just which judge heard this case and how he/she determined that the suspect couldn't understand his rights or the people who interviewed him.

[roddy]

Fair enough then - lock the guy up

[gato]

The judge in the case was 馬保華. The article doesn't say if there is a statutory requirement to provide the notice in simplified script.

(By the way, is this Wenweipo article in Cantonese Chinese? For instance, why 懂操 instead of just 懂? The takungpao report seems to be regular Mandarin Chinese.)

http://www.wenweipo.com/news.phtml?cat=001YO&news_id=YO0507160011&PHPSESSID=e5b8709faaba52c0b74f0bff01c77e26

昨主審暫委法官馬保華指，案中被告在錄影會面時雖有翻譯員在場，但由於被告胡嘉華是內地人士，只懂操普通話看簡體字，而負責拘捕廉署高級調查主任普通話水準又有問題。

　因此，被告究竟是否完全明白調查員警誡內容，以及以繁體字所寫的「羈留人士通知書」列出的受查人士權利，法庭實對此存疑。基於上述疑問，法庭不接納被告向廉署招認的警誡供詞及會面錄影內容。

http://www.takungpao.com/news/2005-7-16/GW-428233.htm

被告胡嘉華（五十六歲），被控三項非法收受利益罪，控罪指被告於○一年六月至去年二月，分別從兩家分銷商敦煌煙草集團的陳曉帆及天堂貿易公司的鍾貴強，收取現金、勞力士手表及電視，作為批出合約予兩公司的報酬。

[Jive Turkey]

Actually, the Mingbao article said that during the interrogation, an interpreter was used. They didn't say when he showed up. The defense said that because of certain questions Hu asked during the recorded interrogation, it was clear that he didn't understand he could have a solicitor. I'm curious about what sort of questions he asked. The defense also said that Hu was forced to shut off his mobile phone so that he couldn't call his solicitor, which the ICAC obviously denied. The judege decided that since neither side actually presented evidence from the phone company showing that Hu's mobile phone was switched off or left on, he should rule in favour of Hu. That seems a bit of BS to me. I would assume that if you're going to accuse the ICAC of making you turn of your mobile phone, you should at least gather up evidence to prove that accusation.

To me, unless this guy asked for a simplified Chinese copy of the statement of his rights and was refused, this ruling is BS.

I just just checked the HK Judiciary's website. The magistrate who heard the case, 馬保華, is not Chinese. His name is Wahab Abu Bakar bin. I wonder if he's got any Chinese.

[wai ming]

As far as my experience with Singaporean and Malaysian students and textbooks go, it seems that both Singapore and Malaysia seem to teach pinyin and simplified characters. That said, I'm not sure to what extent either are emphasised. Certainly I know non-Chinese westerners who are more accurate with their pinyin than some Singaporeans and Malaysians, but that could be because of the local accent or local dialects' influence on their Mandarin. I'd also say many Malaysian students who have had a Chinese education (ie attended Chinese schools) are also familiar with traditional characters, due to imported Taiwanese and HK movies, music, books etc. I've also heard that some newspapers in these two countries are still in traditional characters, while others have switched to simplified characters, but I can't say for sure.

[Ian_Lee]

I just came back from a trip in KL and discovered the interesting mix of traditional/simplified scripts there.

In some Chinese newspapers published there, the headlines are in the traditional script while the detailed content (which is in smaller font) is in simplified script.

When I browsed the big bookstore in Petona Towers, a huge section is devoted to Chinese books. Most of them are in traditional script and published in Taiwan. More customers browse that section than the English section.

[Ian_Lee]

Actually the issue of traditional/simplified scripts has created a lot of problems around the Pearl River Delta regarding property ownership.

Over the last two decades, probably hundreds of thousands housing units in Pearl River Delta are bought up by HK residents. However, since those units are registered in their names under simplifed form, problems arise when, i.e. owner passes away and their kids succeed which need to show proof like Birth Certificate issued in Hong Kong with their parents' names printed in the traditional script. The sons or daughters then need to get an affavadit from some China-certified lawyers' firms in Hong Kong to show that their parents were indeed the owner of that property.

IMO Guangdong government should at least train some officials to be well-versed in both traditional and simplified scripts.

[calibre2001]

I just came back from a trip in KL and discovered the interesting mix of traditional/simplified scripts there.

In some Chinese newspapers published there, the headlines are in the traditional script while the detailed content (which is in smaller font) is in simplified script.

You know what's even weirder? The newspaper websites are in traditional characters

[atitarev]

You know what's even weirder? The newspaper websites are in traditional characters

In Australia, some popular (paper) newspapers are in fantizi but online newspapers (other) are in jiantizi.

[HashiriKata]

In Australia, some popular (paper) newspapers are in fantizi but online newspapers (other) are in jiantizi.

I can understand this. It seems to relex the typical kinds of readership you expect to get in "Western" countries.