Teochew people

I once wrote that some Taiwanese people who identify themselves as Hokkien or Hakka might actually be descendants of Teochews.

Teochews are an interesting group of people among the overseas Chinese, whose ancestral land overlaps with that of Hakkas in the eastern part of Guangdong. Today, the main city is Swatow (Shantou) but it used to be Chaozhou in the past, from which the name of the group derive.

Although geographically from Guangdong, the Teochew language is closely related to Hokkien. Teochew spoken in places like Singapore is mutually intelligible with Hokkien, perhaps because it has been under the heavy influence from the latter, who form the majority there. But I heard that Teochew spoken in Swatow today is not readily intelligible to Hokkien speakers from Amoy.

The majority of ethnic Chinese in Thailand and Cambodia are Teochews, and even the royal family of the former has some Teochew ancestry.

The first Teochews who came into personal contact with me was a refugee family from Cambodia at the Chinese mass community back when it still met at Sophia University. That made me realize that the family running my favorite restaurant Cambodia in Takadanobaba actually was also Teochew.

The Singaporean exchange student I met also at the Chinese mass was also Teochew, and so was the family I stayed with when I was in Johor Baru, Malaysia, on my way to the UK back in 1992.

While I was in Hull, I once visited a Singaporean lady who married with a local English person. I remember she was also Teochew. The wife of one of my best friends from my Hull years is also Teochew, who come from an area close to Thai border on the east coast of Malaysia. Since Teochews from the majority of Thai Chinese, her family might have also moved from Thailand.

By the way, Mr. Li Ka-shing, one of the richest tycoons in Hong Kong, is also a Teochew and there's a YouTube video of him speaking in Teochew. Unfortunately, he is not a personal friend of mine.

Do you have any Teochew friends? Tell me about them.

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!)

Is a well-estabished community language an obstacle to second language learning?

I have heard some people say that the people in Japan, Korea and Taiwan are not as good in English as those in Thailand, Malaysia, Philippines, etc. because the national languages of the former are too well-established and don't allow room for English. It's obvious this theory doesn't stand. What about Sweden, the Netherlands, etc. where the "national" languages are well-established and standardized, but people are phenomenal in English? What about Thailand? I think Thai people are as proud of their wonderful language as the Taiwanese are about Mandarin, and as insistent in using it to communicate with any foreigner who even has a tiniest bit knowledge of it, and yet do quite well in English? Conversely, what about Malaysia, which had once succeeded in codifying its national languages and even made it the sole medium of instruction in tertiary education in the 1980s, but then turned back to English afterwards?

But it is useful to know that for the majorities of people around the world, their "mother tongue" is not the same as the one that's taught in schools. Cases like Japan and Korea, where most people speak the same language at home and school and work and everywhere else, are really rare. It is a highly artificial situation, influenced by the nation-state ideology originated from Europe, i.e. France. It took many years and much effort on the part of the government of Japan, for example, to eliminate all "dialects" to arrive at the perceived "monolingual" state of today. In many countries, there are many languages that are spoken but not standardized enough to be used as a medium of instruction at school. It is expensive to develop those languages and compile textbooks in them. And most of those countries are poor. So the teaching has to be continued in their former colonial language, usually English, French or Portuguese, because materials are more readily available. (The situation in most former Spanish colonies is a bit different, because Spanish has already become the native language of the majority of people.) This creates many problems, of course. One is that it unfairly advantages rich people in urban areas, who have more access to English. (Or French for that matter.) And studies overwhelmingly show that people learn better when they are taught in the language they speak at home, or the one that's widely spoken in the community.

That leaves us with the discussion of the countries that have chosen one of the local languages as the national language. These countries can be classified into two types, I think. The type one are those which have already successfully developed and propagated that language, so much so that other languages originally used are dying out. The other are those which have taken more laissez-faire approach. Thailand is one example of the former. The government has standardized the language and developed enough vocabulary, so almost everything can be done in midland Thai. Many non-Thai speaking peoples first became bilingual in their own language and Thai, and then the young generation grew up knowing only Thai. Politically, Thai was propagated as the symbol national unity. So people started to feel very proud about this language. Minority languages became more marginalized, or even died out.

An example of the latter is the Philippines. Even though the constitution says English and Filipino are official languages, and bilingual elementary education in a local language and Filipino are propagated, it's largely up to each individual to choose which language to do what. As a result, a child from a upper middle-class Manila family may grow up speaking English or "Taglish" as his home, school and community language, all at the same time. On the other hand, another child from a remote area might speak his mother tongue at home, a regional lingua franca like Cebuano to be his community language, Filipino and English as his school languages. Obviously, under normal circumstances, it is so much harder for the second child to do well at school. Nowadays, because of the influence of the electronic media, Tagalog seems to be the winner in this laissez-faire competition. Even people from very remote places can now speak at least some Tagalog. Overseas Filipino Workers who have different first languages also seem to use Tagalog as the lingua franca once away from home.

Now which one is Taiwan, anyway? I think Taiwan was on the way to Type 1, then turned Type 2, but it's too late. During the authoritarian era, the government tried to eliminate "dialects" and promote Mandarin. The high-handed method of giving "dog tags" for those who didn't conform to this rule is notorious. When Taiwan was democratized, it moved on to a more laissez-faire style, with a renaissance of non-Mandarin languages, especially Hokkien and Hakka. But I think it's a bit too late. Very few of my students can converse fluently in Hokkien. Quite a few of them don't understand any at all, even if they are ethnically Hokkien. It's paradoxical, because those are the guys who went to elementary schools when "Mother Tongue" was already a compulsory subject. Hokkien might go down the way of the Irish language in Ireland. Significant things can be said only in English there.

I want to talk more about medium of instruction issue. I hope I'll get to doing it soon.

Will someone's "mother tongue" always be the language he's best at?

Not so, perhaps for the majority of people in the world. "Shifting L1" is a natural and common phenomenon. It means that your primary language shifts from one to another over time. For example, my wife was monolingual in Taiwanese Hokkien before she entered kindergarten. Her parents only spoke Taiwanese Hokkien at home. But after she started schooling, she became proficient in Mandarin. It was back then when the use of so-called "dialects" were discouraged in schools. She always chatted with her friends in Mandarin. So, soon, Mandarin became her dominant language. Now, although she can understand Taiwanese Hokkien with no difficulty, she's not very confident in it either; except for some limited purposes, such as chatting with elder members of the clan, or shopping in traditional markets.

The majority of people in the world live in multilingual societies. In such societies, the language you speak at home may be different from the dominant language of the particular location they live in, which may again be different from the official language or national lingua franca. For example, Juan, a Filipino adult, comes from an Ilonggo family. His parents spoke Ilonggo at home when he was a young child, so you may say that his "mother tongue" is Ilonggo, which is a regional lingua franca in some provinces in the central Philippines. However, his family lived in Manila, so none of his classmates spoke Ilonggo. They spoke "Taglish" (A mixture of English and Tagalog, the vernacular of middle-class manilenos). Soon, Taglish became his dominant language. But as the school he went to was a prestigious private school where people mostly spoke English only, so by the time he graduated from college, English became his dominant language. He can still use Tagalog to conduct casual conversations, but he can't really talk about all topics in straight Tagalog. Moreover, he has forgotten most of his Ilonggo, except some basic expressions. So does it still make sense to say that his first language is Ilonggo? And does it make sense to say that he's a non-native speaker of English, when it is the language he is most proficient in, even though he obviously does not sound like an American when he speaks it (in fact, he has a quite strong Philippine accent)?

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)