It’s Unfortunately Working

Have just come back from yet another extremely fulfilling and surreal trip to the hinterland – this time Shaoguan in the north-west of Guangdong province to which only the coincidence of October 1st, China’s national day, led us. It turned out that absolutely everybody in Guangzhou also wanted to leave the city that day; the three million people thronging the bus station all seemed to be wanting to go to the same places as we did, so we chose to take the train to the first place available instead. Shaoguan.

That turned out to be a good choice, for a “nearby” mountain, Nan Ling National Forest Park (南嶺國家森林公園 Lam Leng Gok Ga Sam Lam Gong Yuen) was truly a place of wonder. As well as being “the only virgin forest left in Guangdong with some beauty spots developed for tourism” it featured a 4 kilometre almost vertical climb along water falls, where we found the above sign, as well as this one:

You can’t really call it Chinglish (or Manglish), can you? It’s just Chinese translated into English. Maybe “Translish”?

The scenery was indeed lovely and quite virginal; the road up to the mountain top (everybody else drove up and walked down the vertical footpath) was only two lane. On the way to the national park was a stunning lake, the air was fresh and everybody we met wanted to chat – in Cantonese. These people were tourists from other parts of the province who had come to enjoy the scenery with the other three million people from the bus stop. We got there first.

However, it was in the hospitality industry of that town that we saw that the government’s edict, get everyone to speak Mandarin, is really working. Someone told me that there are now posters in Guangzhou saying “Be civilised, speak the civilised language” – if someone has photos of these I’d like to see them, but I have absolutely no doubt that they exist. For receptionists, shop keepers, train ticket sellers and taxi drivers have all taken the edit to heart.

I would address people in Cantonese and they would inevitably answer me in heavily accented Mandarin. I had to pretend not to understand Mando to get them to reluctantly answer me in Cantonese; the local language in their own town. Frequently they would even then switch to Mando in mid-sentence as they realised they were committing the mortal sin of talking lowly, gutter, uncivilised Cantonese with an honoured foreign guest.

One taxi driver, after about ten minutes of sparring where I spoke Cantonese and she answered me in Mandarin and I in the end exclaimed: Stop talking to me in Mandarin, I know you can speak Cantonese! she finally said in Cantonese: “Oh! You can speak Cantonese! That’s incredible!” before immediately switching to Mandarin again. When I asked why she did this, she said: I was afraid you wouldn’t understand.

So you’re in London talking English to a taxi driver and he answers you in French because he’s afraid you don’t understand English???

It’s a terrible state of affairs.

I can’t count the times my students and others have told me that they went to Guangzhou (or Shenzhen, Zhuhai or other GD destinations) but “nobody could speak Cantonese; everybody spoke Mandarin.” Yes – to you. Because they’ve been told in no uncertain terms by people in authority that no foreigner can ever learn Cantonese (it’s too difficult) and also that it’s a shit-arse, crappy language only suitable for use between their own four walls and preferably not even there – ideally they should only talk Mandarin even to their own children, as exposure to Cantonese will cause lasting psychological damage such as not being able to get into kindergarten at age 2 months.

So it’s up to the people in the free world to halt and then turn around this terrible development. When you are in Guangdong province, don’t take MandNO for an answer. Keep talking in Canto until people see the light. Make them understand that Cantonese is nothing to be ashamed of; on the contrary, that it’s the coolest language currently available.

And travel in Guangdong province! It’s beautiful and it’s just on your doorstep.