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Cabbie on a mission to promote native
languages
By Hung Ting-hung and Jake Chung / Staff reporter, with staff
writer
Cabbie Pan Ching-hsiung waves on
Wednesday in Greater Kaohsiung. Pan urges his passengers to speak their native
languages to their children.
Photo: Hung Ting-hung, Taipei Times
A taxi driver working in Greater Kaohsiung,
worried that the Hoklo (also known as Taiwanese), Hakka and Aboriginal languages
are gradually dying off, has been giving out flyers to customers urging parents
to respect their children¡¦s right to inherit their native language by using it
with them.
He also thinks the Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) may owe Taiwanese
compensation for enforcing a Mandarin-first policy for decades.
Pan Ching-hsiung (¼ï²M¶¯), 65, who was born in Pingtung County¡¦s Yanpu Township
(ÆQ®H), has been driving a cab since he was 34. He said that in many conversations
with his passengers, he found that although they knew how to speak Hoklo, they
chose not to.
Curious about such reluctance, Pan began his very own survey of passengers 13
years ago. To reduce awkwardness and lessen chances of conflict, Pan said he
often started by asking his passengers, in Hoklo, why they didn¡¦t talk to their
children in Hoklo.
Although most replied that it was because teaching Hoklo is difficult, Pan said
he suspected that the real reason was that they deemed it classier to use
Mandarin.
Once he met a mother who used English to talk to her child and Pan said he took
the opportunity to suggest to her that her child was still young and could learn
English later and that every-day conversation should be conducted in native
languages.
¡§Once you learn how to speak a native language when you are young, it is with
you forever,¡¨ he said. ¡§Therefore the sequence of language learning should be be
oral fluency in native languages, then Mandarin and then a foreign language.¡¨
To promote the importance of a balance in learning three languages ¡X a native
language, Mandarin and a foreign language ¡X Pan registered a trademark with the
Intellectual Property Office last year under the Tungling Tri-language Balanced
Learning Kindergarten.
Pan¡¦s intent was not to found a kindergarten, but to promote the idea that
parents should be required to speak in their native language with their children
in order to preserve the native languages.
Pan said the promotion of Mandarin by the former KMT administration during the
Martial Law era (from May 20, 1949, to July 15, 1987) was an erroneous policy
that has ended up threatening the viability of native languages.
Pan said he has asked the Taiwanese Mother Language League to consider
establishing a committee to seek compensation from the KMT for the Taiwanese who
have lost the right to speak or inherit their native languages.
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