マレーシア人の言語

 マレーシア人の半分以上はマレー人、残りは中華系、インド人、欧州系などです。一般人の感覚としては、ムスリムであればマレー人と認識されるようです。マレー人は主に田舎に多く住んでいて、大都市では中華系が多数です。

マレー人以外で、家でマレー語を話している人はほぼいません。それで、都市によって、主要な言語が違います。例えば、クアラルンプールの街なかで一番良く聞くのは広東語、ペナンでは福建語（台湾語とほぼ同じ）、シブでは福州語（福建語と全然違う）、コタキナバルでは客家語、という具合です。

例えばクアラルンプールでは、自分の家庭で話す言語が英語であれ、潮州語であれ、外で知らない人と話す場合は広東語で、となります。ただ、福州語や海南語など、割りとマイナーな言語がメインの都市では、若い世代を中心に、華語（北京語）で話していることが多くなっています。華語は学校の授業の媒介語だし、話し言葉と書き言葉が一致しているからです。

このような言語の違いを、一般のマレー人はあまり認識していません。「中国人だから、中国語で話しているんだろう」ぐらいに思っている人が多いようです。

なお、インド系の人たちは、特に都市部では、お隣のシンガポールのように、家庭でも英語を話している人が多いようです。

こういうのは、実際に行って聞かないと、本当のところはわかりません。アンケート調査などをしても、社会的通念や、ナショナリズムが暗に求める建前を答えてくることが多々あります。

ここまで書いたのは、話し言葉のことです。読み書きになると、中華系の場合、中国語学校出身の場合は中国語で、マレー語学校（旧英語学校）出身の場合は英語で、ということになります。プラナカンという、古くから現地化した少数の華人は、上の世代はもっとマレー語を使っていたようですが、今は英語がメインです。中華系で、読み書きはマレー語でするし、マレー語新聞をとっている、というマレーシア人を私はまだ見たことがありません。

そんなわけで、華語も広東語も、ひいては英語もマレーシアの公用語ではありませんが、マレーシア人同士でこれらを使って話しているのは普通です。言語的には、マレー語のマレーシアとそれ以外のマレーシアが、同じ国土に共存しているような感じです。

The Bible, the Brits and Hong Kong nationalism

British protestant missionaries believed a nation originated from a group of people who had the Bible translated into their own vernacular. 

This seems to be the case in Hong Kong, albeit with a 100-year time lag. 

Cantonese with its Hong Kong characteristics has been a defining feature of the emerging Hong Kong identity. 

Cantonese has become the lingua franca of Hong Kong, despite the fact that only about a half of the population of the British commercial enclave was from Canton, the rest coming from various linguistic backgrounds, including the local dialect which significantly differs from Cantonese.

This was probably due to the influence of Canton traders who had a history of trading with western merchants. 

The Brits apparently kept the lessez-faire  attitude to language matter in the territory, partly in fear of Chinese nationalism, whose medium was Mandarin, seeping in across the border. 

Fast forward to 90s and 00s: Very few residents felt they were anything other than "Hong Kong Chinese."

However, since it became clear that Beijing didn't honor One Country Two Systems formula in the 10s, more and more Hongkongers started to be attracted to Hong Kong independence movement, hitherto unpopular. 

One of the things that made them really feel they were different from the rest of the world was their lingo, now increasingly in its written form, spread wide thanks to informal publications like magazines and comics. 

The Bible didn't result in a Canton Nation, but a people seem to be emerging, at least partly thanks to the language policy (or lack thereof) of the British. 

香港の広東語と香港アイデンティティ形成

香港の広東語は香港アイデンティティ形成に貢献した。香港では、英語などの影響を受けた広州語＝廣府話、俗称香港広東語（以下、広東語）がリンガ・フランカとして機能しています。

しかし、香港の人口で広州語エリアにルーツがある人は半数ぐらいに過ぎないと言われています。それ以外は、上海語、潮州語、福建語、客家語、広州語以外の広東の方言（香港の土着言語）などの話者でした。

それにも関わらず、広東語の浸透力はとても強く、それと英語以外の言葉は「いなか語＝鄉下話」と言われて蔑まれ、香港で育った第二世代は、事実上、広東語のモノリンガルになっていきます。

もともと、香港は商業で栄えた都市で、外国人との交易を担っていたのが広州人だったから彼らの言葉が街のリンガ・フランカになりました。

イギリス当局は、表面上は不干渉（レッセフェール）の政策をとっていましたが、本音は、中国国内と同じ言語が通用して中国ナショナリズムが香港に波及すると困るから、あえて広東語の発展を妨げなかったのではないかと思います。

さて、その効果が発酵したのが、最近の香港アイデンティティの高まりです。

９０年代、２０００年代とも、自分は中国人だと思わない香港人はそんなに多くなかったのです。ところが、中共が一国二制度を反故にした２０１０年代あたりから、それまでほぼ存在しなかった、香港独立運動が急に支持を集めるようになります。

香港の人が、自分は他とは違う香港人だ、と感じる一つの要素が香港独特の広東語です。正式には書き言葉はないのですが（香港の公式な書き言葉は英語と中国語）、雑誌や漫画などを通して、書き言葉も少しづつ浸透し、香港人がネットで書き込みする場合、香港英語以外では書き言葉の広東語が普通になっていています。

清朝末期のイギリスのプロテスタント宣教師たちは、人々が自分の言葉の話し言葉に訳された聖書を手にするとそこから「民族」が発生するという、マルティン・ルターの思想の影響を受けていたと思いますが、１００年以上のタイムラグで、本当にそうなりました。

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?

Singapore influence? Fluent Mandarin speakers in southern peninsular Malaysia

The language life of young Chinese Malaysians in southern Malaysia has been influenced by the language policy of neighboring Singapore. This could be one of the examples of an interesting situation where the language policy of one country is affecting the populace in another.

Mandarin has different functions among Chinese-educated Malaysians in different parts of the country. I learned this from a conversation with one of my former students from Malaysia. I realized that I had been overgeneralizing. Here, I'm talking about those Chinese Malaysians who come from "Independent" Chinese Schools, in which that the sole medium of instruction is Mandarin. The situation in Malaysia is complex. So I'm excluding those who were educated in "National Form" Chinese schools, in which the medium of instruction is Malay or English at least for some subjects.

In southern peninsular Malaysia, namely Johor and Malacca, Mandarin has become the dominant language for almost all domains of life for younger people. This might be due to the influence of Singapore media, especially TV. Malacca is about the furthest point Singapore terrestrial TV signals can reach. In Singapore, the Chinese "dialects" are banned from public square since of the "Speak Mandarin Campaign". Therefore, all Singaporean Chinese TV programs are either produced in Mandarin or dubbed in it. In Singapore, as in Taiwan, Hong Kong films dubbed in Mandarin. (Which, I think, really sucks, in my opinion... It's quite daft to see "Fatt Gor" speaking in flunet Bejing-accent Mandarin!) Although Malaysian TV stations carry some programs in Cantonese, people in southern Malaysia generally prefer Singaporean TV stations. Because of this, students and graduates of independent Chinese schools in Johor are very fluent in Mandarin, and have an accent akin to standard Taiwanese Mandarin. If you walk into one of those schools now, you will hear students chit-chatting and gossiping in fluent Mandarin.

The situation is a little different in the rest of peninsular Malaysia. The Chinese communities in several important cities, such as Kuala Lumpur (KL) and Ipoh, are predominantly Cantonese-speaking. TV and radio stations are largely in KL, so this explains why Cantonese is so prevalent in Malaysia, even though Hokkien is the biggest Chinese ethnic group there. The Chinese-educated residents in those areas use Cantonese to converse with each other for daily purposes. Even though the medium of instruction is Mandarin, at least nominally, it is used only for formal situations, such as public ceremonies, speech contests, etc. Thus, people there feel more comfortable in Cantonese, while feeling insecure about their strongly-accented Mandarin. So Mandarin is restricted to formal domains. (By the way, I'm very interested in Cantonese being an identity marker for Chinese Malaysians residing in Taiwan. This is another story...)

The situation is similar in other cities in northern peninsular Malaysia, except that the dominant "dialect" may be Hokkien or Hakka. I once visited a city in the extreme north, where an Islamic political party has held power for a long time. I tried to socialize with students of a so-called Mandarin-medium school. Not only they spoke almost no Malay at all, they didn't even speak Mandarin well. So how do they communicate with each other? Hokkien, when at school or in town; and their own home "dialect", such as Cantonese or Teochew, when at home.

Sorry for sidetracking, but this suddenly reminded me of another interesting episode (for me). In that city in northern peninsular Malaysia, Chinese people watched Thai TV all the time. I asked them why. They said Thai pop music sounded better than Malaysian, especially Malay music, and that Thai TV programs were more entertainment-oriented than Muslim Malaysia. But do they understand the Thai language? Nope. I found out the answer when I visited the Thai side of the boarder. Thai people there spoke Hokkien! This was because there are many Malaysian Chinese tourists who visit there from Penang, a Hokkien-speaking city! This is another example of the language situation of one country influencing another, by the way.

Is not promoting a language the best way to promote it? Examples from Hong Kong and Taiwan

I used to laugh at my mother who said in her blog posts almost everyday that she had spent the whole night writing a long post, and then it got deleted. Now the same thing has happened to me. Two lessons: First, you should not laugh at others, especially your own mother; Second, when you have written a post, publish it quickly. To do this, don't write posts that are so long that it needs to be reviewed before publishing.

Is not promoting a language the best way for the authorities to promote a language? I sometimes think it is. I'll show you two examples: Hong Kong and Taiwan.

The British authorities had a so-called laissez-faire approach toward languages in Hong Kong. But I have already written that this was a hidden way of promoting Cantonese, so that Hong Kong will have a different dominant language from mainland China. Although Cantonese-speaking people made up only half of the total population, it was possible to foresee that Cantonese would win out, given its influence in commercial and cultural spheres. In fact, Cantonese was so successful that it almost supplanted the local language of Hong Kong, Hakka, as well as other Chinese "dialects" originally spoken. Today, you could argue that Hong Kong is a pseudo-monolingual society in Cantonese. It is a symbol of Hong Kong identity, which is separate from that of mainland China. What a successful way of promoting Cantonese? And this was achieved by not promoting it.

Taiwan's example is somewhat reverse. Both the Japanese and KMT administration had very high-handed policy of trying to eradicate local languages and promoting Japanese and Mandarin respectively. They both did it by forcing those schoolchildren who transgressed the no-local-language policy to wear a dog tag that said something like "I am stupid". Intimidating local people succeeded in promoting the official language only superficially. Many Taiwanese people who grew up in that era, consciously or unconsciously, try to speak Mandarin with a very strong Taiwanese accent. Some even try to avoid the use of Mandarin altogether, sticking to Hokkien whenever they can. On the other hand, look at the younger generation who grew up after the democratic reform. The aggressive promotion of Mandarin was replaced by so-called "Mother Tongues" made a school subject. And yet, those people have now become native-speakers of Mandarin, fully comfortable with expressing their Taiwanese identity in this tongue that originated from Beijing! Recently, I often notice that some students even use the word "Taiwanese" to mean Mandarin, not Hokkien!

And what has happened to Hokkien, which is now "officially promoted" as a school subject? I'm sorry to say, but it seems that it is going the way of Irish in Ireland. Very soon, Taiwanese people will only be able to say some peculiar phrases and swear words in Hokkien, or hum some Hokkien tunes like "TiN-o'-o'" which they have learned at school, but not being able to convey any substantial message in Hokkien.

(But this will not mean the death of Hokkien; more than half of its speakers are outside of Taiwan; in China, Southeast Asia and Taiwanese communities in the U.S. and Japan. They will probably keep alive the language which will no longer be understood in Taiwan!)

Sacred Heart Cathedral: IAWE conference in Hong Kong and Guangzhou (Day 4-2)

After the end of the conference, I hurried to the Cathedral of the Sacred Heart to attend the anticipated mass. Thanks to Wendy's help, I was able to take the bus and find the place easily. The area seemed to be the old trading part of Guangzhou with many small warehouses and shops. The building there are very similar to ones seen in places like Kuala Lumpur, where a lot of Cantonese people migrated to. I love old southern Chinese shop houses. I wish I had more time to explore the old part of Guangzhou. Another reason to go back.

The Cathedral was built by the Paris Foreign Mission, just like many churches in Japan. So it has a familiar French Gothic feel, similar to the one in, for example, Ho Chi Minh City. A bit different from the Spanish style more prevalent in Taiwan, Xiamen and the Philippines. 

Back of the church. Renovated very well. When I first visited the St. Ignatius Church in Shanghai back in 1997, it was quite dilapidated with bullet holes still visible on the wall, possible caused by the red guards during the cultural revolution. But the condition here and now seems even better than the cathedral in Saigon. 

The church was packed with young people. I noticed that most of them were non-Catholics just visiting. It seems that there are quite a lot of young people who are interested to "come and see" to find out about the Christianity. There were also quite a lot of catechetical materials being distributed at the entrance of he church. I often hear the argument in Taiwan that the general apathy among the youth toward religion is because of affluence. But Guangzhou is not much less affluent than Taipei! 

Look how well-dressed those children are. Another evidence of the high standard of living in Guangzhou.

After feeding the spirit, now it's time to feed the stomach. I went into the first restaurant I saw after coming out of the gate of the church. A 小菜 made with potatoes is very uncommon in Taiwan. Taiwanese people regard potatoes to be something foreign. That's why it's called 洋芋. On the other hand, 土豆, which literally means "local bean" and used for potatoes in the mainland, means peanuts in Taiwan. I don't think many users of "土豆網" in Taiwan know that they are using the "Potato Net", though...

Even in the world capital of MSG, the wave of health freak food is coming...

I know I'm not in Beijing, but I have to eat this at least once whenever I'm in any part of China. Thanks to the presence of migrant workers from northern China, one could get good zhajiangmian even in Guangdong.

I was quite surprised that I had to pay nearly NT$200 for this dinner for one. And I don't think I got ripped off, like most foreigners used to do in the past in China. It just shows that food in Guangzhou is really no cheaper than Taipei. (I was going to check out a massage place after this, like I always used to do whenever I visited China. ) 

 

Wendy was so kind as to get those shouxin (sauseun; Cantonese for souvenir) for me, and brought them all the way to the venue of the conference. I appreciated it very much, because I really had no time to do any shopping at all. Thank you, Wendy! A kind of old southern Chinese shophouses is featured in the packaging of the first shouxin.

By the way, if you are in Guangzhou area right now, I strongly urge you to visit the cathedral at least once. It's well worth a visit!

(To be continued)

SYSU and me: IAWE conference in Hong Kong and Guangzhou (Day 4-1)

 

Zhousan! A colleague from Guangzhou, whom I met when I was working part-time at a Chinese restaurant when I was in high school in Tokyo, once told me, the congee in Guangzhou is "number one". I remembered what he said.

Well, although I'm sure that century egg and lean meat congee of this quality can be found easily in Hong Kong, and in Taipei if you look hard enough, but any random shop nearest to hotel can offer this quality is a sign that the level in Guangzhou is quite high!
 

Bought coffee at a bakery, and walked toward Sun Yat-sen University, venue of the conference. I spotted many foreigners.
 

Here I am at SYSU at last. There's a long story about SYSU and me. To tell you the truth, I once had a dream of studying there. It was the first Chinese university that I had heard of.

When I was in junior high, I became so obsessed with China that I started attending Chinese mass at Sophia University, hoping to learn some Chinese for free. There, I met Fr. Cochini, a French jesuit who spoke excellent Mandarin Chinese. He told me that he had taught French at SYSU in Guangzhou. That's how I first heard of the place.

Later, I became more interested in Cantonese than Mandarin. Back then in Japan, the easiest way to get in touch with Chinese culture was to watch hugely popular Hong Kong movies, of which I was a big fan. Those were all in Cantonese soundtrack with Japanese subtitles. Many of my classmates knew some Cantonese phrases from watching them. On the other hand, the only chance to hear Mandarin was NHK's Chinese courses. The strong Beijing-style rolled tongues and communist-style culture that went along with them put me off. (I somehow had an impression that most people who were learning Mandarin in Japan were left-wing people.)

So I started having a dream of going somewhere where I could learn Cantonese and Mandarin at the same time, and SYSU was such a place. (Back then, the idea of learning Mandarin in Hong Kong seemed a very bizarre one, even more so than learning English there.)

The first time I actively sought possibility of studying Chinese was when I was in the second year of university in the UK. In the UK back then, Chinese meant Cantonese. I looked into possibility of going to SYSU in Guangzhou. After all, I had an uncle who had studied at the Institute of Chinese medicine in Guangzhou, so it did not seem to be an outladish idea. However, I learned that foreigners had to pay a special rate in mainland China, and that the living conditions in dormitories in China were still not suitable for foreigners. Eventually, my friends from Hong Kong recommended going to Taiwan instead. Eventually, that's how I ended up in Taiwan.

I learned for the first time from Prof. Bolton that SYSU used to be the Christian College of Canton run by American missionaries. Interesting for me because my paper was about missionary schools teaching English in Taiwan.
 

Coffee shop. I really liked the building styles of SYSU, which were a combination of southern Chinese and western elements.
 

Signs in traditional characters. I thought the government had banned the use of the traditional in public signs...

Personally, I used to prefer simplified because it gave me less pain writing. But now that most writing are done by typing on computers, it makes no difference. Besides, the traditional seems to be aesthetically more pleasing.

High school field trip?
 

 

 

I liked those buildings.
 

I was surprised this one not taken down during the recent anti-Japanese riot.
 

Language classrooms were modern and cozy.
 

Lunchbox provided by the conference was very nice. Not very cheap, it seemed. I liked it much better than western style conference food in Hong Kong. I like western too, but I don't have to eat it in Hong Kong and China.
 

Zhongda Yixian mineral water!
 

Mandarin orange from southern Fujian, provided together with lunch. The culture is different from Hong Kong, even though it is so close geographically.
 

The signs are very clear and well-designed. It's good they spelt it "Yat-sen Road", instead of "Yixian Road"!
 

The school of Foreign Languages. Finally, I arrived at the venue of the conference. Pretty much the whole day was spent in the conference, which included the presentation of my own paper.

It was cool to listen to David Graddol in such a close distance, and his talk on languages in the Pearl River Delta was immensely interesting!

In the next post, I'll write about my "adventure" to the Sacred Heart Cathedral in Guangzhou, with the "remote control" from Wendy, a student at SYSU.

To be continued...
 

Robustness of Guangzhou-Hong Kong style Cantonese (Part 1): Languages in Pearl River Delta

(Video: People in Hong Kong and Guangzhou rallying in defense of Cantonese. In my impression, Cantonese is still very robust in the Pearl River Delta; people could perhaps be a bit oversensitive due to the massive influx of migrants from other provinces.)

I used to feel relieved to cross the Hong Kong-China border over to Shenzhen, because I was finally getting out of the strange (to me) environment of Cantonese and going back into the familiar Mandarin-speaking environment of Shenzhen. Shenzhen could be one of the most Putonghua-friendly cities in China. The majority of its citizens come from many different provinces. So although it used to be a Cantonese and Hakka speaking small town in the past, many people you come across in Shenzhen today don’t speak much Cantonese. (It seems, though, that speaking Cantonese is considered fashionable among some young people who grew up in Shenzhen regardless of where their parents come from. This is probably because of the Hong Kong influence. It is entirely possible that there will be a shift in Shenzhen towards Cantonese in just one generation.)

But further inland the Pearl River Delta, it become a Cantonese world. Although there is a huge outsider population in Guangdong, people will try Cantonese first if they are not sure what language you speak. In modern and upmarket places, people seem to use Cantonese more. Like in Hong Kong, they may associate Cantonese with modernity and urban life, and consider all other languages as “Heung-ha wa (country bumpkin languages).

It seems to me that Cantonese is more robust than many people in the area think. Perhaps the local Cantonese-speaking people feel under threat because of the presence of a large number of migrant workers from other provinces in their area. Although almost everybody in Guangzhou are fluent in Mandarin, they seem to be making it a point to speak Cantonese, just to let others know that they are city folks, unlike those who come from other poorer provinces to work. (Those people are generally called “northerners”, regardless of which part of China they come from.)

 Another reason why Cantonese is so robust is because it is still used as the primary broadcast language in Guangdong, despite the fact that probably more than half of the population in that province are from non-Cantonese backgrounds. (Aside from those migrant workers from other provinces, there are other non-Cantonese indigenous languages in Guangdong, such as Hakka, Teochew, etc. But those languages are almost never used in broadcasts. As a result, most of those non-Cantonese Guangdongers have passive understanding of Cantonese.) This is probably because radio and TV stations in Guangdong need to compete with Hong Kong stations that provide superior programming, and are widely available in the province. (The situation is rather different in Amoy, where the only Hokkien-speaking radio station has a function of propaganda machine targeted at Taiwan, and mainstream broadcasts for locals are in Mandarin.) I remember hearing a friend from Guangzhou telling me about 30 years ago that he never listened to local radio stations because he preferred Hong Kong stations.

What is notable about Guangzhou-Hong Kong style Cantonese is that it is probably the only regional lingua franca other than Putonghua still robustly used in China. In various parts of Pearl River Delta, different dialects of Cantonese are spoken. But they are now gradually replaced by Guangzhou-Hong Kong accent Cantonese, probably because of the media influence. For example, in Shunde, Foshan or Jiangmen, the older generation may still speak their distinct variety of Cantonese, but the youth can only speak Guangzhou-Hong Kong style Cantonese plus Putonghua. This is unlike other important languages in southern China. In southeastern Fujian, it seems (I have never been there), people in each place speak their own variety of Hokkien plus Putonghua, and Amoy-Taiwan style Hokkien doesn’t really function as a regional lingua franca although it is the variety used on the radio.

This robustness of Cantonese always surprises me. In the post-war Taiwan, all the regional languages died out within one generation. Even in families where parents are from Shanghai, their siblings in Taiwan speak zero Shanghainese, and often don’t even have passive comprehension. Many young people are not proficient even in their own local language: Amoy-Taiwan Hokkien. On the other hand, I’ve met families where even the third generation born in Taiwan can still converse fluently with also Taiwan-born parents in Cantonese. (Their Cantonese-speaking grandparents may be from Vietnam, Malaysia or Canton.) I also know of people whose either parent only is Cantonese, but consider themselves Cantonese-speaking.

Another interesting thing I noticed is this: Malaysian students studying in Taiwan become proficient speakers of Cantonese only after they arrive in Taiwan, where Cantonese is seldom used by locals. Yes, Cantonese is a lingua franca in some parts of Malaysia including Ipoh and Kuala Lumpur. But in other cities in Malaysia, some other Chinese language is the lingua franca, for example Hokkien in Penang, Hokchiu in Kucing, Mandarin in Malacca, etc. Regardless of that, after they arrive in Taiwan, they all start talking to each other in Cantonese. All this despite the fact that they are all Mandarin-educated and that most of them also speak Amoy-Taiwan Hokkien pretty well. I wonder why…

Well, that’s another story, so I’ll write a separate article some other time.

Back to China again; IAWE conference in Hong Kong and Guangzhou (Day 3-2)

First of all, I would like to thank the kindness of all my friends in/from China. Without their help, this "fun" trip would not have been possible!

Nice to be back in China! This is the China side of Shenzhen Bay immigration. The procedure was efficient and speeedy, and the immigration officer actually smiled at me!

It's always nice to be back in the familiar world of Mandarin in Shenzhen, coming from the strange Cantonese environment of Hong Kong. Shenzhen is a predominantly Mandarin-speaking city, despite its location in Guangdong and proximity to Hong Kong. I'll write a separate article about the language situation in Pearl River Delta later.

Another reason why I feel a sense of relief being back in China may have to do with the orderlyness or otherwise. Hong Kong is very much like Japan, where everything is squeeky clean, orderly and done according to the rules. While it's nice, it may give somewhat suffocating feeling to someone who has lived in Taiwan for so long! I always feel relieved when I arrive in "chaotic" Taipei after being in Japan for a while. Entering China from Hong Kong, or going to Johor Baru from Singapore for that matter, gives me a similar feeling. 

Our nice coach belongs to Hong Kong side, judging from the side of the steering wheel.

Everything in Shenzhen is new and shiny. I like old cities, but SZ is interesting in its own way, because it is unlike any other city in China. This time, though, we had to bypassed it.

When we passed by Dongguan, which is known as "Little Taiwan", I tried to look for any traces of Taiwan from the window of our coach, but could not find any, except the fake Mickey on a kindergarten wall.

Guangzhou, here we come!

Gangnam style in Guangzhou. Before this, they were dancing to salsa and Hindipop tunes! Globalization...

A huge mass of people dancing in the park really reminded me that I was in China! Thanks, Wendy and Xiao-wan, for taking me around.

Thanks to Wendy and Xiao-wan, I finally arrived at Sun Yat-sen University, my destination. Rather different from my expectation... I mean, I didn't expect hundreds of people dancing Gangnam style in front of its gate.

It would be nice to take a cruise on Pearl River.

Yes, this is the kind of Guangzhou thing that I wanted to experience. A restaurant row near the Small North Gate of SYSU. I would not have been able to find it without Wendy and Xiao-wan taking me there.

Luckily, it was not as spicy as it looked. Perhaps Xiao-wan wanted it spicier! She's from Vietnam.

Teppan-tofu. I didn't realize it was a Cantonese dish.

Of course, we got to eat a lot of fresh veggie.

The streets in the area where I stayed was not glossy like Shangri-La area, but were wide, clean, and bright. The roads were evener and tidier in general than Taipei. Maybe thanks to the clean-up before the Asian Games?

It's amazing to witness how fast big cities in China advance. When I first went to Shanghai in 1997, Pudong, which is now full of futuristic skyscrapers, was just a pile of mud. There was no linear motor car from the airport then, so I had to be careful not to be ripped off by tricycle drivers (but I still was). People could tell me immediately that I was from overseas from the way I dressed. Quite a few men were still wearing Mao jacket back then. Some toilets were starting to have doors, but it still did not occur to some people that they could close them.

Of course, I'm happy about the development of China. But I somehow also miss the days when visiting China was such an adventure. Really, not one day passed without an incident which really blew my mind. Both good and bad, but maybe more bad.

Thanks to the recommendation by Amy, one of the exchange students from China in my class, I chose to stay at 7-days Inn. One of the reason why this hotel chain can keep the prices so low is because they choose locations that are hard to find. But it does not mean that they are in inconvenient locations. There was this Family Mart near my hotel, which reminded me of Taiwan. (On the other hand, Seven-Elevens and Circle Ks in Guangzhou are more like those in Hong Kong.)

At this Family Mart, I often spotted many foreigners, who appreared to be from Africa and Russia. The guy in the shop spoke very good English. But he spoke to me in Cantonese.

It seems that Cantonese is the first choice for convenience stores in Guangzhou. Perhaps because it gives a Hong Kong kind of feeling? (Read my post on the robustness of Cantonese.) 

This room for RMB157! Well worth it. Such a far cry from the disgusting room in Hong Kong which was for HK$280 per night! (It eventually became HK$480 per night because they charged Alan HK$200 for the no-show the first night...)

Because otherwise, I found the prices of things quite expensive in Guangzhou. I felt the food in restaurants and other things in the convenience stores much more expensive than in Taipei. Later, I learned that properties in Guangzhou can actually be more expensive than those in Taipei. So the price at 7-days Inn is even more surprising. 

Facilities were very clean. There was abundance of hot water for shower. (This can be a problem for cheap hotels in many countries.)

Internet was OK, except that Gmail and Facebook were slow (due to the Great Firewall?).

Hot water for making tea is a must for Chinese travellers anywhere.

Towels were very clean and changed everyday.

As usual for hotels in China, there was a price list of equipments in the room for those who wanted to take them home for souvenirs. It included, as usual, prices for things like toilet lid and the map for emergency evacuation.

I was able to sleep well that night.