The Mandarin Behemoth Juggernaut Destroyer

Sleepy backwater Pui O, a haven of backwaterishness and sleepiness. Who would think this village and especially its beach would become a hub for mainlanders on shopping sprees? They spend the days shopping in the ‘outlets’ (also known as shops, but outlets somehow sounds cheaper) in Tung Chung, and then spend the nights in tents on Pui O beach.

The beach and nearby roads reverberate to the sound of Shrrr shrr shrrrr shrrr, which is one of the about four different sounds the Mando language seems to consist of. Of course they come from the north and don’t speak Cantonese, but I can’t help feeling a little disconcerted hearing it all around me here in Hong Kong which should be a bastion of Cantonese.

The other day I was waiting for the 3M bus to Tung Chung at Lo Uk Tsuen’s new bus stop, the worst, most dangerous and badly made bus stop in the entire universe, and overheard a conversation between a young couple and the mother of one of them (I assumed). They were Cantonese speakers, proper Cantonese speakers from, I guessed, Guangzhou. They had a little girl about four or five years old, but when they talked to her, they suddenly switched to Mandarin.

What the?

I asked, as I always do “Just out of interest, why do you talk to the child in not your mother tongue?”
“Oh, that’s the way they speak in school.”

I knew it of course. I’ve met hundreds of parents like that. They think they are helping the child by making it monolingual.

Is there any hope? What’s in the mainland is bound to come here, because those commies can’t help themselves, they must force everyone to be, act and speak the same.
Some people think Mandarin and Cantonese are the same, only with different pronunciation. NOTHING could be further from the truth. Mandarin is a boring, communist-speech vehicle, poor in vocabulary and largely constructed by bureaucrats. If Cantonese is English, Mandarin is Esperanto. And the simplified characters? Don’t get me started! Why should we be forced to adopt something inferior and shabby when what we have is great?

Stand up to the Mandarin juggernaut! Learn Cantonese this year.

國語 (Gok yu – Mandarin)
巴士站 (Ba si chaam – bus stop)
羅屋村 (Lo uk tsuen – Lo house village)
父母 (Fu mou – parents)
大陸人 (Daai luk yan)