[bsznjyewgd]

You don't think teaching Chinese in Mandarin (5% first language) rather than Cantonese (90% first language) or trying to introduce national education into the curriculum is assimilation? Responding to criticism that it's brainwashing propaganda, here's what the chairman of a pro-Beijing education lobbying group had to say:

"A brain needs washing if there is a problem, just as clothes need washing if they're dirty and a kidney needs washing if it's sick," said Jiang Yudui, chairman of the Beijing-friendly China Civic Education Promotion Association of Hong Kong, according to news reports. Jiang's comments in July came at the same time that tens of thousands, including many parents pushing their children in strollers, took to the streets to protest against the plan.

[UIZealot]

> You don't think teaching Chinese in Mandarin (5% first language) rather than Cantonese (90% first language) or trying to introduce national education into the curriculum is assimilation?

No I do not. That's just what you teach to your citizens. When the US took over Puerto Rico, kids there damn well learned English, the American history, the national anthem, and the star spangled banner in school. Do you call that assimilation? Or is that OK because it's the US that did it?

[partialrecall]

> "When the US took over Puerto Rico, kids there damn well learned English, the American history, the national anthem, and the star spangled banner in school. Do you call that assimilation?"

If that's not assimilation, then I have no clue what the term means.

> "Or is that OK because it's the US that did it? "

If your argument relies on all Americans being hypocritical sycophants of the American government, it's a bad argument. Criticism of America is mainstream in America. One can be American and be critical of the American government, just as one can be Chinese and be critical of the Chinese government. In fact there is ample reason for both to be critical of both.

[UIZealot]

Call it assimilation if you want. My point is that it's what all governments will do under the situation. The fact that China did not push through national education forcibly shows that it's willing to forgo even that minimum amount of "assimilation". It has actually been a model of hands-off administration.

EDIT: Actually do not call it assimilation. Learning Mandarin as a shared language does not mean eradicating Cantonese, and most Hongkongers are ethnic Chinese and share much of the same culture, there's nothing to assimilate.

[manhuntingoyu]

No. That is the exact definition of assimilation.

Wiki: Cultural assimilation is the process in which a minority group or culture comes to resemble a dominant group[1] or assume the values, behaviors, and beliefs of another group.

[UIZealot]

No it is not assimilation. See my edit.

[banabr]

> Mandarin as a shared language does not mean eradicating Cantonese

Mandarin is a dialect, just like Cantonese.

China has been actively trying to eradicate Cantonese but mainly backfired. In Guangdong, no less.

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Guangzhou_Television_Cantone...

So yes, it is assimilation when you force your dialect on others.

> most Hongkongers are ethnic Chinese and share much of the same cultuRe

I beg to differ. Mao destroyed a lot of cultural relics during the Cultural Revolution. Things that used to be wide spread such as idol worshiping is no longer seen in China and only in Hong Kong. Hong Kong resembles more of the traditional China culture than China does today.

[partialrecall]

Oh yeah, the Chinese government is the model of restraint.

Give me a break dude. Are you free to criticize your government or not? I freely criticize mine, and you should do the same.

[UIZealot]

The Chinese government certainly has a lot to improve when it comes to how it governs the people of mainland China.

But we are talking about Hong Kong here. And it has been a model of restraint here, if you are being honest with yourself.

[bsznjyewgd]

We are talking about the same Hong Kong in which sellers of questionable books were disappeared to the mainland, apparently without the knowledge of the HK government.

[banabr]

If it is a model of restraint, what would be your definition of unrestrained. It seems like you would have a different way of handling the situation? Would love to hear it.

[joyeuse6701]

That is assimilation I think by definition, without the value judgment. The question is whether or not Puerto Rico wanted it and if it was forced.

Puerto Rico is a poor example, especially since they seem to want to be inducted into the U.S. officially as a state! Hong Kong does not seem to share the same sentiment with Beijing.

[UIZealot]

Since you're revisiting this thread. I will try to clarify the issue.

No it is not. It's only assimilation if you aim to wipe out the local language and culture and replace them with your own.

So it's not assimilation in either case, Puerto Rico or Hong Kong, as the US did not attempt to eradicate Spanish, nor is China trying to eradicate Cantonese.

People who accuse China of assimilation are surely smart enough to know the difference. The thing is, they have already made up their minds, China is evil no matter what it does.

[Leary]

"In 1914, the Puerto Rican House of Delegates voted unanimously in favor of independence from the United States, but this was rejected by the U.S. Congress as "unconstitutional" " [1]

[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Puerto_Rico

History does tend to repeat itself, doesn't it.

[joyeuse6701]

It sure does, but not everything is black and white...[1]

[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Statehood_movement_in_Puerto_R...

[est]

However Chinese and Cantonese share the same writing system.

And don't put gibberish Cantonese scripts as an example, it's called 白字 which means illiterate writing style. You can type that online in forums and IM, SMS to friends but it's not something official nor standard. Should Ebonics be taught in schools instead of standard English?

[bsznjyewgd]

Mandarin and Cantonese share the same writing system in the sense that English and French share the same writing system: mostly the same characters, innumerous cognates, and I can read the back of my cereal box.

Spoken Cantonese is a different language from spoken Mandarin, with different grammar and vocabulary, and when you write them down you get correspondingly different written languages. That written Cantonese hasn't undergone a formal standardization the way Mandarin did in the early 20th century doesn't make written Cantonese gibberish, just not fully standardized. And written Cantonese isn't only used for memeing on forums or text-speak, it's also widely used for casual writing in newspaper columns or in advertisement, or to authentically transcribe spoken Cantonese (rather than paraphrasing in Mandarin). See also:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Written_Cantonese

https://languagelog.ldc.upenn.edu/nll/index.php?s=written+ca...

[Edit: That kids were (and perhaps are) taught to read and write in Mandarin at school using Cantonese sound values, rather than writing in Cantonese, also doesn't say all that much about Cantonese as a written language. Rather, it demonstrates that Hong Kong is a diglossic (well, polyglossic) society.]

[UIZealot]

> Mandarin and Cantonese share the same writing system in the sense that English and French share the same writing system: mostly the same characters, innumerous cognates, and I can read the back of my cereal box.

Completely wrong. A Chinese character is more or less equivalent to a word in English/French. Are all the words the same in English and French? Can you look at French text and know what it's saying if you didn't speak French already? Someone who speaks only Cantonese can read and understand text written by Mandarin speakers without any issue. The reverse is less true, see below.

> Spoken Cantonese is a different language from spoken Mandarin, with different grammar and vocabulary, and when you write them down you get correspondingly different written languages.

Wrong again. They use largely the same grammar and vocabulary.

Because Cantonese is ancient Chinese, over the years they have lost track of what semantic characters to use for some of the Cantonese words.

Tracking down which semantic character corresponds to which Cantonese word could be done if there's enough interest and funding for such work. Once the mapping is done, you will be able to write down Cantonese and have it understood all over China.

Since the work hasn't been done, you can only write down Cantonese with the help of some phonetic characters, which denote only pronunciation but not meaning. It's not gibberish, but neither is it proper written Cantonese. EDIT: Even in its current form, written Cantonese is still 80% intelligible to Mandarin speakers.

[bsznjyewgd]

> A Chinese character is more or less equivalent to a word in English/French.

Most Chinese characters are monosyllabic, and most Chinese words are polysyllabic consisting of multiple characters. A Chinese character is a morpheme, and it also happens that many common words are also single character morphemes.

> Someone who speaks only Cantonese can read and understand text written by Mandarin speakers without any issue.

Because we've all been taught to read and write in Mandarin from the very beginning of our education. Again, Hong Kong is a diglossic society.

> They use largely the same grammar and vocabulary. Because Cantonese is ancient Chinese, over the years they have lost track of what semantic characters to use for some of the Cantonese words.

They share a lot of grammar and vocabulary (...but not all of it) because they share a language ancestor. Cantonese is not ancient Chinese, but it's a descendant that conserved a lot more consonants than Mandarin (and a lot of sound merger is actually happening right now in Hong Kong over the last 100 years, but it's commonly derided as "lazy sound").

> Once the mapping is done, you will be able to write down Cantonese and have it understood all over China. Since the work hasn't been done, you can only write down Cantonese with the help of some phonetic characters, which denote only pronunciation but not meaning. It's not gibberish, but neither is it proper written Cantonese.

See [https://books.google.ca/books?id=pFnP_FXf-lAC&pg=PA51] for a description of common strategies for writing Cantonese. Phonetic borrowing is one strategy, and the most common one, yes, but that's no different than characters in standard Chinese, the vast majority of which are a radical with a semantic category (but not a complete meaning) + a phonetic component.

A Mandarin-only speaker can decide for themselves how intelligible that colloquial Cantonese exchange on page 52 is, what with the difference in vocabulary and grammar.

[UIZealot]

> Most Chinese characters are monosyllabic, and most Chinese words are polysyllabic consisting of multiple characters.

Most modern Chinese words are polysyllabic, but these words are the same in Cantonese and Mandarin. Your comparison to English and French is still false.

> > Someone who speaks only Cantonese can read and understand text written by Mandarin speakers without any issue.

> Because we've all been taught to read and write in Mandarin from the very beginning of our education.

I doubt that. Suppose you were only ever taught written Cantonese. I believe you'd still be able to read Mandarin writings, simply because you would still recognize all the words.

> They share a lot of grammar and vocabulary

So they are not so different after all.

> Phonetic borrowing is one strategy, and the most common one, yes, but that's no different than characters in standard Chinese, the vast majority of which are a radical with a semantic category (but not a complete meaning) + a phonetic component.

Phonetic borrowing, or other ways of making up new characters, might not have been necessary. If we could be bothered to trace the origin of a made-up Cantonese character and find the original Chinese character.

For example, 冇 is wholly unnecessary when we already have 無.

Even with the lazy approach of making up Cantonese specific characters willy nilly, I counted only dozens of them from the Wikipedia article you linked. So how different is Cantonese really from Mandarin, besides the pronunciation?

[UIZealot]

Looks like you are a Hong Kong nativist. I can totally understand, and even support, your desire and struggle for ever higher level of autonomy and self determination.

However, spewing blatant lies about your own language, culture, or heritage invites only ridicule and scorn from honest people who know any about Hong Kong and China.

[UIZealot]

Whoever flagged my reply to try to suppress it, do you care to explain yourselves?

Is there anything I said that's factually untrue? Or are you afraid of the truth?