Why is in in Hong Kong if we talked to them in mandarin?

Question

they will two reaction:
its either they get stunned by me asking them in mandarin
or they will just reply me back in english (which i dont mind at all)

Too bad i cant speak cantonese if im not mistaken speaking mandarin is sort of look down upon?
is hokkien popular dialet in Hong Kong?

btw my mandarin is not heavily accented like the china people..

Answer 1

i'm a mandarin-speaking chinese while i've been in hk for some years before. the dialect of hk is cantonese, which originated from the guangzhou dialect and can be largely understood by the local people of the guangdong province though it sounds a bit different from other dialect in the nearby areas.

on the other hand, you must realize that hk has been a british colony for nearly a century and it has developed into an international city. that's why english is substantially adopted in hk to the extent that hk has kept english as one of its official languages together with chinese after its sovereignty was returned to china in 1997.

in recent decades especailly after 1997, hk's economic and political situations have become very closely tied to china. therefore it is inevitable for hk people to pick up also mandarin in all areas of their daily life, including workplaces, schools and even in the street. it's become nearly complusory in school. but of course there are still quite a lot of hk people (mainly the mid-age to old-age generations) who don't know mandarin at all. that's why when you talked to them in mandarin, they would simply respond you in english as they saw your western face (of course a western guy speaking mandarin might surprise some of them because they would expect you to speak western language given your outlook - just like you would expect them to speak mandarin / cantonese as they look to be a chinese). so don't worry that you were being looked down upon when you speak mandarin in hk. when i speak mandarin in hk i didn't feel that they treated me badly as long as i showed my courtesy.

like some other languages, cantonese shows itself to be very virbant against the above backdrop by mixing different languages commonly used in hk, including many chinese dialects, english, japanese etc. etc. to form many new terms. its own media also play a major role in creating a great deal of new terms that have been quickly popularized in the society. interestingly when some self-created phrases / adjectives first appeared on cantonese newspapers, hk people themselves also need to think a while before they can really understand what the words mean... sounds funny but that is the fact.

i think compared to english, cantonese is a relatively very difficult language because it's so vibrant and pronounciation is kind of complicated (more complicated than mandarin). even i know chinese language before, i would still say it's difficult to learn. i think that's why westerners ususally choose mandarin to learn when they live in hk (not only because it's a universal language in china). i lived there for a few years but i still speak cantonese with notable mandarin accent.

btw, in response to your last line: hokkien is a minority dialect in hk. it's more popular among malaysian and singaporean chinese.

anyway, cantonese is an interesting language. :)

Answer 2

I'm assuming that you are a Westerner for this reply.

It is believed that Chinese is too hard for Westerners to learn and that you have learned only a couple silly phrases and cannot do any real conversation in Chinese. Thus English would be better to facilitate. Hong Kongers also want to show that they can speak English and thus will speak English. Lastly, Hong Kongers don't care for foreigners to speak their language unless you are Filipino, Thai, Indonesian, or Indian domestic worker, which have very low status in HK.

Mandarin is indeed looked down in HK. Mandarin is a forced languaged in many parts of China. Also Hong Kongers look down on Mainlanders... and being a Mainlander is at times synonymous with speaking Mandarin. Although, a native Cantonese speaking mainlander is considered a brother more than a Mainlander.

Answer 3

cantonese is their main dialect....forget bout hokkien unless you want to curse n swear at them...mandarin is highly regarded if u can speak coherently and clearly to them, otherwise u will be regarded as one who is from china who they clearly despise...