102 replies to this topic

[phoenix_bladen]

Hi i would like to know how other chinese from other parts of china view HK chinese? Is the culture there really diverse compared to China?

Also what are the things that only HKers have that the rest of the Chinese don't?

is it safe to categorize HKers as a sub group of chinese sorta like taiwanese?

and what's the different between guangchou and hk cantonese?

thanks i really wanna know !!!

[General_Zhaoyun]

HK Chinese are generally-speaking cantonese chinese and are no different from Guangdong chinese, except perhaps, they are more westernized.

Read
http://www.chinahist...p?showtopic=211

A small portion of HK chinese are Hakka and Shanghainese chinese.

Many HK chinese do not speak good Mandarin, as they predominantly speak cantonese, b'cos in HK, cantonese dominates everything from school to business.

[Klamath]

In my eyes, there are few differences with the others except they are much more wealthier and hardworking.

Joking, sometimes Hongkong enterprises are even more adaptive to the Guanxi society than many mainlanders on business.

[AhMan]

a mystery from Hongkongers I know: their mandarin sux (they are not even able to write characters though they can recognize them), their English is broken English, much inferior to Singlish. I wonder what official language is used at school in Hongkong?

[MengTzu]

a mystery from Hongkongers I know: their mandarin sux

Cuz they speak Cantonese.

(they are not even able to write characters though they can recognize them),

What on earth are you smoking? Are you from Mars? Gazillions of Chinese books are written by Hong Kongese. Just look at the number of gossip magazines in Hong Kong. They are all written in Traditional Chinese. If you're saying they don't write Simplified Chinese, well duh, they use Traditional Chinese just like the people in Taiwan. Sorry for being rude, but your denseness amazes me.

their English is broken English, much inferior to Singlish.

English is used by the government and court, but 99% percent of the people speak in Cantonese 99% percent of the time. Even with English being taugh in school, without everyday life usage, they tend not to be fluent in English, though their English is usually better than most East Asians (Mainland Chinese, Taiwanese, Japanese, South Koreans). Also, the comparison with Singlish is irrelevant: Singlish is a form of English, and by Linguistic standards, at least a sort of localized English (kind of like Creole). English, like any language, is a constantly changing phenomenon. It's narrowminded to think that Singlish is bad English. The implication that "Hong Kongese are even worse that Singaporean in English" is a uninformed one, because Hong Kongese are truly bad in English, while Singaporeans are flunent in English, just a different form of English, as there are many forms of English spoken over the world today. (And don't use the "Oxford English is standard" argument. English is a changing phenomenon; Oxford English isn't the original English. What rights do British have that Americans, Austuralisn, and Singaporeans don't have to develop variants of the English language?)

I wonder what official language is used at school in Hongkong?

Mostly Cantonese in the lower grades. The higher grade one goes, the more English is involved. In some high schools only English is used except for Chinese and Chinese history classes. In universities, English is predominantly used.

[nguoiVietchanhtong]

a mystery from Hongkongers I know: their mandarin sux (they are not even able to write characters though they can recognize them), their English is broken English, much inferior to Singlish. I wonder what official language is used at school in Hongkong?

as long as they keep their original Cantonese Yue language alive, then they are very brave. Ahman, who cares about Mandarin and English? It's only needed in big business areas. Small families don't need Mandarin and English to survive.

[adoo]

A small portion of HK chinese are Hakka and Shanghainese chinese....

if im not mistaken.

in the late 1940s, hundreds of thousands of Shanghainese, escaping from China's civil war, had migrated to HK. Their descendants make up an integral part of HK populace. Shanghainese HKers dominate the banking industry.

...Sorry for being rude, but your denseness amazes me.....

ditto, AhMan's elevator does go up to the top floor

Edited by adoo, 08 August 2005 - 05:21 PM.

[yehzhaofeng]

The reason why we need to learn mandarin, even though we're Chinese, is because we need to communicate with our brothers, who speak Mandarin.

[urofpersia]

a mystery from Hongkongers I know: their mandarin sux (they are not even able to write characters though they can recognize them), their English is broken English, much inferior to Singlish. I wonder what official language is used at school in Hongkong?

Firstly, I know of many HKers who speak excellent Mandarin. They have a slight accent but doesnt make it any harder to understand. HKers in general are much more literate in Chinese than say Singaporeans

2ndly, there are many HKers who can speak very good Queen's English as well. (Refers to usage and standard pronunication, rather than a specific accent)

I am not sure if you have experienced Singlish before, its a local patois using English as a base mixing in words from Malay and Chinese while often following its own grammar rules distinct from English. The usage is sufficiently different from 'standard' English that foreigners usually have some trouble initially understanding Singlish. Most educated Singaporeans know the difference enough to use proper English when necessary and Singlish among his fellows however the line can be blurred hence our Speak Good English campaign.

Note, this is not about accents. There is a distinct Singaporean accent by the way. Most Singaporeans born and bred do not differentiate between long and short vowels. To us, most of them are pronounced as a long vowel.

[kaixin]

Hong Kong people are different from Taiwanese in that they still view themselves as Chinese. Many still have ancestral connections and relations with their ancestral villages in Guangdong and other provinces.

I got some HK relatives and they seem a bit materialistic driven. Too many of them are semi-Japanophiles too, esp. the young girls.

Some of them worship the white people a little more than Cantonese in the mainland.

Undoubtedly, some of them probably view themselves as superior to the Chinese in dailu (mainland).

[urofpersia]

Thanks for correctlng my misconception, I always thought when folks referred to the Queen's English they meant standard English!

[adoo]

I got some HK relatives and they seem a bit materialistic driven. ... yip, as do Americans and Mainlanders ....Too many of them are semi-Japanophiles too, esp. the young girls.  it's pop culture

Some of them worship  the white people a little more than Cantonese in the mainland.

again, it's pop-cultural

Undoubtedly, some of them probably view themselves as superior to the Chinese in dailu (mainland).

it's dai-look

Edited by adoo, 09 August 2005 - 10:36 PM.

[DomaHwang]

English, like any language, is a constantly changing phenomenon.  It's narrowminded to think that Singlish is bad English.

Sorry to tackle off-issue.
Well for native english users it would be fine to have diversity. However. ESL people cannot understand the divergent accents, and it is almost torturing us if you ask us to master them. We simply cannot understand. So I strongly recommend to use received pronunciation when you talk with internationals.
Either standard American or British (usually you can hear from CNN and BBC news) will do, though I personally prefer BBC.

Edited by DomaHwang, 10 August 2005 - 05:01 AM.

[AhMan]

Well, you don't have to repeat that co'z I've only met a limited number of Hongkongers my age. I've not met many Hk scholars. But you have to accept the fact that Hongkong teens are really bad at writing Chinese, though they can pick up a Chinese novel and read easily (example is when I asked them to write their names, they had to take time to think, then wrote the characters down, then "I" sometimes even corrected some characters by adding strokes....really weird. I forgot to ask if they were taught in Cantonese because that is likely the cause.
I had a HK friend who struggled in Med because his English was not good enough, then he had to drop it and switch to Agriculture.

[Miborovsky]

a somewhat related article:
http://msnbc.msn.com/id/6200193

As a forumnite on anothe forum pointed out, this is the choreography of the video:
Great Wall of China
A boy flying a small plane
A commercial airline landing
Hong Kong City
A man from Mainland China and a man from Hong Kong, with the cityskape of both in the background
The Handover Ceremony
A choir of people singing
People waving, obviously happy
Many people waving Hong Kong flags
More people waving Hong Kong flags
People, perhaps tourists, looking at local landmarks in Hong Kong
A landmark in Hong Kong
Joyous young people on bikes and running
A takunaut holding a Chinese and UN flag*
Misc chinese people and a Hong Kong flag
People celebrating with baloons
People lined up, cheering and obviously happy
The choir again
Peple running
People running up the great wall
A chinese family eating
A Chinese boy and perhaps grandfather
People marching at a ceremony waving Hong Kong flags
Someone scoring in Tennis and a large Hong Kong flag waving
A picture of a countryside with electricity poles and a large bridge
Military troops training
A military band playing a tune
The PLA marching
A boy saluting his flag
A soldier in Hong Kong raising and saluting his flag
Various scenes of people with a Hong Kong and Chinese flag visible.

So this tells us what the HKers think of US CHINESE.