Shanghai's Bund and park where before the war, "dogs and Chinese" were not allowed in: the city and most of the other ports were ruled by white men (including Oriental whites or Japanese) supported by their gunboats. -- Picture by Francis Chin
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Mandarin a foreign tongue to many Chinese
Both belly pork and duck meat are available in Singapore's NTUC FairPrice supermarkets as canned food under the Narcissus brand. They go very well with steaming hot white rice porridge.
I returned to my seat, not forgetting to lock the door on my way back. In our roomy compartment I noticed two very beautiful girls at the back of the car. They were Shanghainese, tall, willowy and exceedingly fair. Could they be models? Most professional models come from Shanghai. The women folk of this bustling city are fashionable, articulate and enterprising.
The next day in Shanghai our tour guide said Shanghainese men are very afraid of their wives. After a day's work in the factory or office, men come home and do household chores and look after children. And at the end of each month, the pay packet is dutifully handed over to the wife.
The tour guide also said Shanghainese men are in great demand as husbands by Japanese women! It appeared that many Japanese women are tired of the chauvinist Japanese males; hence they flock to Shanghai looking for docile husband materials. (Our guide, Miss Fan, although as vivacious and pretty as any Shanghainese, comes from the neighbouring port of Ningpo.)
ONE OF the peculiarities of China is that two cities may be virtually next door neighbours but the speech, mannerism and attitudes could be worlds apart. Hence, the people of Shanghai and Ningpo, although within hailing distance of each other, regard themselves as very different.
Another example nearer home are the Amoy and Hockchew Chinese -- both forming sizeable groups in Singapore. Xiamen port (Amoy) and Fuzhou the provincial capital (or Hockchew) are neighbouring cities in Fujian province but few Amoy folks can understand the strange Hockchew patter; and vice versa. As far as both sides are concerned, the mother tongue of their neighbour might as well be Swahili.
When I was in Amoy in 1983 (China was then opening up under Deng Xiaoping's Four Modernisation programme) I saw "tourist" groups from Fuzhou which is an hour away by coach or taxi, The Hockchew "tourists" couldn't understand a word of the Amoy natives and needed to speak Mandarin, a foreign tongue that all Chinese were forced to learn in school under the Communist regime.
Contrary to what many outsiders, including overseas English-educated Chinese, think, Shanghainese, Hockchew, Amoy (Hokkien), Cantonese, Hakka and other regional tongues in China are languages in their own right. Each one, although sharing some common written words, are distinct and different in syntax, grammar, vocabulary and pronunciation. None are "dialects" of Mandarin. Cantonese, for instance, is the working language of Hong Kong, and comes complete with its own subset of dialects. In Taiwan, there is a movement to make the local Taiwanese Hokkien (very similar although not identical to Amoy) the national language, replacing Mandarin which is no more than a foreign import from northen China.
Today, many Chinese are trying hard to learn English. Street signs and public notices often have English inscription. In some parks, groups of Chinese meet regularly to practise English conversation. Every tour guide I met spoke excellent English. Some even speak French, German and other European tongues. In the very long term, China may become like Denmark or Holland -- a national language of English for common communication, and various mother tongues depending on location. Mandarin will then be relegated to where it rightfully belongs -- a regional tongue for north-east China.
Tour guides are often graduates of elite foreign-language institutes. After their studies, they are supposed to be offered state scholarships abroad and top government positions on their return. But oversea scholarships are now being delayed because the government has little money, and also because of the general suspicion among the ruling cadres concerning educated young people with undesirable liberal tendencies.
The tour guides are thus among the best and brightest, and the most frustrated. Our Nanjing guide, Mr Nieh, has waited more than a year for a promised American scholarship while our Shanghai guide, Miss Fan, plans to emigrate to Europe by year-end.
It was almost mid-day when our train rolled into Shanghai Station, probably the busiest in the world. When we got down we were instantly swept along by a relentless mass of people through the exit. It was much later at the car park outside the building were we able to catch our breadth. We also discovered that our main luggage wasn't loaded onto the train. We would have to wait until evening for it to arrive by another, slower, train. -- Francis Chin
