Hong Kong/Cantonese

In many schools in south east China Cantonese is the medium of their instruction. The students are taught to read and write standard Chinese, however, they read with Cantonese pronunciation. Cantonese is also the main language the businesses, media, and government use in both Hong Kong and Macau. In my research I also found out that Cantonese has appeared in writing since the 17^th century. It is mainly used in personal letters, diaries, comics, poetry, advertising, newspapers, magazines, and in some literature.

There are two standard ways of writing Cantonese: there is a formal version and a colloquial version. The formal version is very different from spoken Cantonese but very similar to standard Chinese and can be understood by Mandarin speakers without much difficulty. The colloquial version is much closer to spoken Cantonese and unintelligible to Mandarin speakers.


Another fact I learned was that all varieties of Chinese are tonal. You may be saying what is tonal. Tonal means that each syllable can have a number of different meanings depending on the intonation with which it is pronounced. Cantonese has between 6 and 9 tones depending on who you ask.


The Cantonese language is also viewed as part of the cultural identity for the native speakers in southern China, Hong Kong and Macau. As stated earlier Cantonese shares much vocabulary with Mandarin Chinese, however, the two languages are not mutually intelligible. This is largely because of pronunciation and grammatical differences in the two languages. The use of vocabulary in Cantonese also has more historic roots. The most notable difference between Cantonese and Mandarin is how the spoken word is written. In the Mandarin language the spoken word is written as such, where with Cantonese there may not be a direct written word matching what had been said. This can result in the situating in which Mandarin and Cantonese text almost look the same, but are both pronounced differently (Cantonese, 2012). “All speakers of a language speak some dialect of that language. Dialects can be regional or social or both. People in different parts of the country speak differently but even within one area; people of different social classes may speak with different dialects” (Freeman & Freeman, 2004, p.90). The Mandarin and Cantonese language share many words however, the way the words are spoken and written make it hard for the two speakers to understand each other.


The Chinese New Year is the most important celebration in the Hong Kong culture. The Chinese Folk Religion plays a crucial part of the culture. Unlucky sayings are considered offensive, and many people travel yearly to the cemetery on Ching Ming festival to honor and worship their ancestors. In Hong Kong there are many Shrines to the Gods and Goddesses of the earth. Also things like bagua mirrors are still used to protect and shield people from evil.

Numbers in the Chinese culture also play a role in people’s everyday life. The number 4 is avoided because it has a similarity to the Chinese word for die. Also a large number of Hong Kongers are Christians or Catholics. Other religions such as Islam, Hindu, are also practiced by minorities in Hong Kong (Hong Kong, 2012).

In Hong Kong Cantonese people represent the largest group of people. Beside the Cantonese, people of other Han Chinese groups also reside in Hong Kong. However, the Cantonese remains the largest group even amongst other Han Chinese groups in Hong Kong. The Hong Kong culture is also highly Cantonese-influenced and with the fact that Cantonese is most commonly used language of both everyday and formal conversations, as well as its use in the media and education other Han Chinese groups in Hong Kong, such as the Hakka, the Hoklo, the Shanghainese, or the Teochew, in particular those who are Hong Kong born or raised, often assimilate into the mainstream Cantonese identity of Hong Kong (Hong Kong, 2012).

An interesting fact that I learned was that the English language and the Cantonese language are considered the two languages of Hong Kong. English is one of the languages of the business and service industries; hotel employees, many urban Hong Kong residents, most young people and shop and service personnel understand and speak it to some degree (Hong Kong, 2012).