Speaking tongues

As you may or may not know, I am working at the British Council as their Assistant Director of Science and Climate Change programs. Although it is the British Council, I am still working in Hong Kong with Chinese colleagues who speak Cantonese. Sure, everyone speaks English but when they see my Chinese face, they naturally think that I am as fluent in their native tongue as they are.

In the beginning, I always prefaced my introductions to Chinese colleagues with “I’m so sorry but my Chinese is mah-mah (not so good)” but recently I’ve said to hell with it, I am going to embrace the language and try my best to use my Cantonese. Overall, it’s been a good strategy, not only because it forces me to practise my original mother tongue but it brings me into circles that I wouldn’t have normally been genuinely welcomed if I did not. For example, you don’t see the gwei-lo colleagues (Caucasians) being invited to all of the cool little, hole-in-the-wall but really delicious lunch places that they go to. Places where the servers don’t speak English, let alone have English menus. I never know what I’m going to get as I usually just point to my colleague and say, “I’ll have what she’s having.”

And conversations in Cantonese are just so much more lively. I can’t really explain it if you don’t speak Cantonese but I’m sure that this isn’t a phenomenon with just Cantonese. I suspect Spanish conversations are more exciting than English ones as well. There are just some Cantonese expressions that have no equivalent in English and sometimes the way that the language is spoken – it’s just so welcoming and playful. Like you’re in a secret club or something. The language allows little room for people to be guarded, unlike English. Maybe it has something to do with the fact that Cantonese is more a spoken language than a written one (for those of you who are facebook friends with Jonathan, you can read his recent missive on the Cantonese language). And also it probably has to do with how each sentence ends with “laaaa….” or “maaaa…..”

Anyways, I really am impressed with the way that my Chinese colleagues are so fluent in both English and Cantonese and even, Putongua (or Mandarin). It’s amazing! I actually started Putongua classes this week at the British Council (they offer Chinese instruction programs for their staff) and that hour I spent learning how to count was like making my mind do the stairmaster at the highest level for like 3 hours. I will let you know in due time how I fared with this bit of Putongua when I come back from Beijing.

Hong Kong's Mel Lastman

In the first couple of months, I was still checking cbc.ca and the Toronto Star for the latest Toronto and/or Canadian news. But more and more, I have just been grabbing my SCMP (South China Morning Post) at the MTR (subway) station with a beep of my Octopus card and reading it on the way to work.

The front page of the SCMP the other day was a story about the upcoming 4 June anniversary of the Tiannamen Square protests and subsequent killings of student protestors by the Chinese army. Donald Tsang, Hong Kong's Chief Executive Officer, said this in the Legislative Council, "I understand Hong Kong people's feelings about June 4, but the incident happened many years ago. The country's development in many areas has since achieved tremendous results and brought economic prosperity to Hong Kong."

You can imagine that the other members the legislature went ballistic.

So basically he's saying that as long as the economy is doing well, then we shouldn't worry too much about those people who were murdered and their families who want justice. I wonder what the Jewish population has to say about that cuz it's kind of like saying "oh let's just forget about the Holocaust because it was so long ago and look! the Germans have done great things for the world...love their cars!"

And then the buffoon realised that he made a mistake and tried to backtrack and said, "My view represents the opinion of Hong Kong people in general, and the opinion of citizens has affected my view. What I have just said is how I feel about the views of the people of Hong Kong."

What an ass.

I talked with some colleagues and friends here in HK about it and apparently this Chief Executive Officer has a screw loose. There is no social filter and he doesn't think about the repercussions of what he says. I asked my colleagues if he had a speech writer and they say that he does, this very clever woman who writes very appropriate speeches for him but he thinks that he is smart enough not to use them and he ad-libs!

All I want to know is how in hell does people like that get into power?

I wasn't going to go to Victoria Park (a prominent park in HK) for a vigil for the murdered students of Tianneman but we are sure as hell going to go now.