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Protesters rally in China, Hong Kong
over local dialect
AFP , HONG KONG
Monday, Aug 02, 2010, Page 1
More than 1,000 protesters rallied in Guangzhou and Hong Kong
yesterday against what they say is Chinaˇ¦s bid to champion the national
language, Mandarin, over their local dialect, Cantonese.
Hundreds of mainland police officers were deployed to disperse protesters who
gathered in Peopleˇ¦s Park in Guangzhou to call on authorities to preserve the
Cantonese language and culture, Hong Kong broadcasters RTHK and Cable TV
reported.
ˇ§Guangzhou people speak the Guangzhou language,ˇ¨ some angry protesters chanted
as the size of the crowd grew to about 1,000, RTHK said.
Videos from Cable TV and YouTube showed that some of the rally participants were
forcibly carried away. A number of Hong Kong journalists were taken for
questioning, Cable TV reported.
Chinese authorities have been anxious to suppress the growing pro-Cantonese
movement, sparked after a political advisory body in Guangzhou proposed last
month that local TV stations broadcast their prime-time shows in Mandarin
instead of Cantonese ahead of the Asian Games in the province in November.
Adopting Chinaˇ¦s official language, also known as Putonghua, would promote
unity, ˇ§forge a good language environmentˇ¨ and cater to non-Cantonese-speaking
Chinese visitors at the huge sporting event, authorities were quoted as saying.
Hundreds of Guangzhou residents defied government orders and staged their first
demonstration the previous Sunday, but the protest was soon suppressed by the
authorities, according to reports.
To echo the Guangzhou campaign, about 200 protesters marched to the government
headquarters in Hong Kong yesterday.
ˇ§We want to show our support to our Guangzhou friends in their campaign to
protect Cantonese against any threat of elimination,ˇ¨ said Choi Suk-fong,
organizer of the rally.
Participants wore white T-shirts with a logo which said: ˇ§You want us to shut
up. We will speak louder in Cantonese.ˇ¨
A number of Guangzhou residents crossed the border to take part in the Hong Kong
rally, saying that authorities in Guangzhou were trying to silence the
protesters.
ˇ§I really regretted not going to the rally in Guangzhou last week. I came to
Hong Kong today because I want to protect my own culture. Unlike on the
mainland, here I can voice my view more directly,ˇ¨ said 21-year-old Wyman, who
refused to give his family name for fear of retaliation by the Chinese
authorities.
Instances of mainland protests spilling over into Hong Kong, which was returned
to China in 1997, are rare since Chinaˇ¦s the 1989 Tiananmen Square Massacre.
Cantonese is the mother tongue for an estimated 70 million people in Hong Kong,
Macau and Chinaˇ¦s southern Guangdong Province, and is widely spoken in overseas
Chinese communities.
China has long been a patchwork of often mutually unintelligible dialects.
Beijing made Mandarin the countryˇ¦s official language in 1982, leading to bans
on other dialects at many radio and television stations.
The dialect has been further promoted in recent years as migrant workers moved
to Chinaˇ¦s coastal areas to find jobs.
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