Advanced Search

The story appears on

Page A15

March 8, 2016

GET this page in PDF

Free for subscribers

View shopping cart

Related News

Home » City specials » Hangzhou

Youqu or feyan? Either way, it’s interesting

By Wu Huixin | March 8, 2016, Tuesday | Print Edition

CHINA is a nation of regional dialects, and concerns grow they may disappear as Mandarin takes root as the unifying language of the country.

In Hangzhou, fewer and fewer young people are fluent in the local dialect. School lessons are conducted in Mandarin, and government over the years encouraged families to speak the national language at home.

“Most kids in my class cannot speak the Hangzhou dialect, though they can understand what people say in it,” said Lucy Liu, a kindergarten teacher in the Zhaohui residential block. “The number of children who know the dialect is decreasing over time, and that could endanger the dialect in the future.”

Just how different is dialect from Mandarin? For example, youqu (interesting) in Mandarin is feyan in dialect. And chaojia (quarrel) is naojia’er.

According to a survey in one local primary school last year, only one in 20 students could speak authentic Hangzhou dialect, even though they came from homes with parents who spoke the dialect.

In order to preserve Hangzhou dialect, the city government listed it as “intangible cultural heritage” last month.

“A lot of people here are dedicated to protecting our dialect,” said Qi Xiaoguang, director of the Hangzhou Intangible Cultural Heritage Protection Center. “However, it’s not enough to declare it a cultural heritage. To preserve the dialect, it needs to be used and handed on to future generations.”

The Hangzhou Chinese Culture Promotion Society launched a dialect competition last year, drawing nearly 1,000 participants. It also sponsored a dialect online test, which attracted more than 30,000 people.

At the same time, the Hangzhou Comedy Art Theater is staging operas and dramas with librettos and scripts in dialect.

“The theater has been collecting dialect material for a long time,” Dong Qifeng, chairman of the theater, told the Hangzhou Daily. “We integrate Chinese poems with local dialect, giving performances in primary schools to stimulate interest in the local language.”

In homes throughout the city, parents often talk with other adults in the local dialect but speak Mandarin when addressing children.

“In their minds, they worry that too much emphasis on the local dialect might impair their children’s learning ability in school, where Mandarin is a must,” said Hua Hanqing, a teacher at the Hangzhou Shenfu Road Primary School.

The obvious solution is to introduce some dialect teaching in public schools. Hangzhou Chunya Experimental Primary School, Yinmajing Lane Primary School and Jianqiao Primary School have begun classes in dialect for students. They are taught its history and cultural heritage.

School officials noted with interest that children from migrant families new to the city seem more interested in the dialect than students born here.

Local media are also participating in efforts to preserve the dialect from extinction.

Hangzhou TV launched a program called “Teach You Dialect” in 2014. The presenters use common dialect words in the program and also adapt popular buzzwords to dialect to interest young viewers.

The non-governmental website www.hangzhouhua.com, designed by a Hangzhou local named Pang Haha, is also dedicated to spreading more widespread use of dialect.

The preservation campaign extends to the arts.

Noted copper seal sculptor Zhu Bingren created a dozen of Hangzhou-dialect themed seals to express his devotion to the heritage. The works are now on display in the China Seal Museum on Solitary Hill.

All these efforts have some local residents scratching their heads. Is the dialect really a living treasure or just a contrived means of holding on to a disappearing past?

“When I was young, speaking dialect was not encouraged in schools,” said a netizen called who goes by the Melomane. “The government wanted everyone to use Mandarin. Now that we have done that, the government has switched gears and is promoting use of the local dialect. It’s all a bit ridiculous. I don’t see the need to try to protect it because if current trends continue, the dialect will disappear one day anyway.”

Hangzhou


 

Copyright © 1999- Shanghai Daily. All rights reserved.Preferably viewed with Internet Explorer 8 or newer browsers.

沪公网安备 31010602000204号

Email this to your friend