Yesterday, our class had the opportunity to attend a two day conference, ’Cantonese Worlds’, presented by the Hong Kong-Canada Crosscurrents Project. Before attending, I had little information on the history of how Cantonese came to be one of the official languages in Hong Kong and Guangzhou, as well as the factors leading to potential extinction of Cantonese. In this reflection, I will note the points of the conference that I thought resonated with me.

Helen Leung, from the Department of Gender, Sexuality and Women’s Studies in SFU, brought up a question along the lines of, “How do we use the cool factor of Cantopop and Cantonese actors or actresses in the media as a tool to preserve Cantonese?” Zoe Lam responded in saying that production of Cantonese media such as from TVB, must be continually produced with new actors and actresses, so that Cantonese can continue to appeal to younger generations. Zoe’s response held a lot of truth in it, because it was relatable to me learning Mandarin through Taiwanese media. Earlier, Zoe claimed that TVB was a huge part of how Cantonese is preserved within young people, creating an urge to understand the language from favourite Cantonese dramas. Personally, I thought that I could relate to this point a lot, though through Mandarin rather than Cantonese. Moving to Canada at the young age of 2, my parents enrolled me in Chinese school in hopes that I would retain my first language. However, it did not take long for my Mandarin to start sounding choppy and heavy with a foreign accent, because of my lack of interest in learning Mandarin in Chinese school. Thankfully, in my high school years, I began to develop an interest in watching Taiwanese dramas in which the actors and actresses spoke Mandarin. Now, while I still sometimes struggle with reading Mandarin characters, my ability to speak the language is not carried with a foreign accent.

Among many of the videos we were shown, Zoe showed a video of a man speaking Cantonese to children in Guangzhou, who were not able to understand him. Although Cantonese first developed in Guangzhou, after the People’s Republic of China was established in 1949, the government wanted the primary language to be Mandarin instead of Cantonese. From then on, children were taught in strictly Mandarin, leading to the diminishing knowledge of Cantonese in Guangzhou. This prompted me to think of how quickly a once official language of a country could be wiped out almost entirely because of the state. Another person in the audience asked why people in Malaysia could retain a variety of languages. Henry and Zoe answered that because of Malaysia being not as “politically loaded”, the people living there are not restricted with a dominant language of speaking.

Dr. Jan Wells spoke about Mandarin and Cantonese being equally relevant languages to learn in this day and age. He raised the idea that these two languages should not be seen in an either-or perspective, but rather, which language can be learnt first. His passion for learning and teaching Chinese made me think of the opportunity I had in Chinese school in the past and still have, living with my parents who speak Mandarin, to strengthen my language skills in Mandarin and taking on learning Cantonese in the future.