Cantonese as an identity marker among Malaysians residing in Taiwan

Thanks to my former student Goh Yi-yee, I've got those two  CNY TV commercials, one partly and the other entirely in Cantonese. The fact that Malay-owned companies choose to use Cantonese, not Hokkien or Mandarin, when trying to reach maximum Chinese-Malaysian audience shows how influential Cantonese is in Malaysia. Which is a bit strange come to think of it...

When I was in Malaysia, I hardly heard any Cantonese spoken except in Kuala Lumpur (KL) and Ipoh, where it is the lingua franca. So it was a mystery that almost all Chinese being heard on Malaysian TV and radio was Cantonese, when the biggest "dialect" group in Malaysia is actually Hokkien. But I was guessing that it must have been because the TV stations are in KL and many programs were imported from Hong Kong, so people had started thinking Cantonese was somehow cool.

Another big surprise, when I started having a lot of Chinese-educated Malaysians among my students here in Taiwan, was that Cantonese seemed to be an identity marker for them, regardless of whether they are ethnic Cantonese or not, or whether they come from Cantonese-speaking parts of Malaysia such as KL or Ipoh. In fact, even those from Penang, the heartland of Zhangzhou-accented Hokkien, East Malaysia where Cantonese people are almost non-existent, or southern peninsulr Malaysia, where Mandarin is much more prevalent than Cantonese because of the Singapore influence, were conversing with each other in Cantonese. And that was here in Taiwan, where practically nobody understands a word of Cantonese, perhaps with the only exception of "hou sai lei"!

Here are the results of my speculation after having lengthy conversations with my former and current Malaysian students.

Possible reason one: Identity marker
Like I said, most Taiwanese people don't have a clue when they hear Cantonese. But they do understand Mandarin spoken among Malaysians. So Cantonese can function as a fraternity language among Malaysians. That is to say, it makes them feel they are a part of the Malaysian community here. They're making themselves different from the Taiwanese who surround them. But why not other dialects? Why not Malay?

Possible reason two: Status of Cantonese in Malaysia itself
As I wrote at the beginning, Cantonese is considered something of a cool language in Malaysia, compared with other codes (=languages/dialects). Like I said in the last blog post, there is a domain segregation between Mandarin and Cantonese in central peninsular Malaysia. Mandarin is for "formal" occasions. Cantonese is for chit-chat among friends. This is exemplified in Malaysian FM stations. There, news reports on the hour are in Mandarin, and then it suddenly switches to Cantonese when the DJ's informal talk starts. Its informality makes it more suitable to be a fraternity code.

Possible reason three: The only non-Mandarin lingua franca
So Mandarin is out. Firstly because too many Taiwanese understand it! And secondly because it's too formal to be fraternal. Then, why not other "dialects", such as Hakka or even Teochew? (Hokkien is out, because Taiwanese understand it.) Well, excluding the important exceptions of Penang and Singapore where Hokkien is the lingua franca, can you think of anywhere in Malaysia where Chinese people from all ethno-linguistic subgroups speak with each other in a dialect? Nope, except Cantonese! Can non-Hakka people in some parts of Selangor or Kota Kinabalu speak Hakka? Can Hokkien people in Johor Baru speak Teochew and Foochow? Hardly, right? Cantonese is the only non-Mandarin "dialect" that is robust enough to be a lingua franca. (As for the reasons for its robustness, I've already written in another blog post. It's to do with British Hong Kong government's "clandestine" language policy.)

Possible reason four: Poor command of Malay
It's hard for non-Malaysians to believe, but it's true that there are lots of Malaysians who can't speak much Malay. Those who come to Taiwan to study are mostly from independent Chinese schools, so they've hardly had any chance to use Malay is all their lives. The Malay language is associated with ethnic Malays, who make up about the half of the total Malaysian population. And it's an open secret that many non-Malay Malaysians hold feelings ranging from ambivalent to sheer grudge towards Malays, whom many consider as receiving "undeserved" benefits. So the situation is totally different from those of Thailand, Indonesia and the Philippines. There, many Chinese people are monolingual in the national languages of the respective countries. On the other hand in Malaysia, Malay cannot be an identity marker for Chinese Malaysians living in Taiwan, for the practical reason that many can't speak it well in the first place.

So its got to be Cantonese. Nei chi m chi a?