The Imperialism Continues

The Mandofication continues at breakneck speed. I’m sure the “great” idea of making Hong Kong simplified character-ised to “adapt” and accommodate the 700,000 mainlanders currently living here so they’ll feel more at home, has already been suggested in the corridors of power more than once.

The above is some poor primary school sucker’s test (homework?) where all the words he or she thought were Chinese have been brutally red-pencilled out. Yes! It’s anti-Beijing to write the Cantonese 生果 (saang goh – fruit). It should be 水果 (seoui goh – fruit) and make no mistake! 魚蛋 (yu dan – fish balls) isn’t allowed and neither is 橙 (chan – orange) Anything that can be perceived as “vernacular” (although all the words are in the dictionary) are rooted out, seemingly with sadistic glee.

Although not exactly the same because Cantonese and Mandarin are two different languages , it would be like English schoolchildren being punished for writing “car” instead of “automobile”, “plane” instead of “flying machine” and “bike” instead of “penny-farthing”.

The Cantonese words are better! Shorter! More descriptive! And they are what people actually say.

I hope Hong Kong people will take note and start writing everything in the vernacular. What are they going to do – shoot us?

帝制 – dai jai (imperialism)
繼續 – gai juk (continue)