Man fuels lingo rumor
By Echo Wang |
July 30, 2010, Friday
|
Print Edition
Print Edition
POLICE in south China's Guangzhou City have detained a man who started rumors that fueled a "culture war" in which hundreds of locals took to the street in protest against a policy to promote Mandarin.
The man surnamed Yu was not even a local Cantonese speaker, police said. Yu came to Guangzhou from Hubei Province on a business trip and posted the rumors online saying Guangzhou police had approved a protest rally for the protection of Cantonese.
Yu will be detained for five days.
His posts prompted hundreds of people to gather on Sunday, locally based New Express Daily said yesterday. Up to 1,000 people, mostly in their 20s, clogged downtown Guangzhou, holding signs and shouting slogans, to show support for their native language.
No one was hurt in the protest, which caused traffic jams and lasted about three hours.
Police said the rumor grew out of a political adviser's proposal that Guangzhou's main television company broadcast more programs in Mandarin to cater to migrant workers who couldn't understand the local dialect.
But the rumor spread that the Guangzhou government would ban Cantonese broadcasting in Guangzhou. The non-existent ban sparked a "culture war" in local online forums. Some said they have to protect Cantonese, which is also spoken in Hong Kong and Macau, so that it won't be supplanted by Mandarin.
The man surnamed Yu was not even a local Cantonese speaker, police said. Yu came to Guangzhou from Hubei Province on a business trip and posted the rumors online saying Guangzhou police had approved a protest rally for the protection of Cantonese.
Yu will be detained for five days.
His posts prompted hundreds of people to gather on Sunday, locally based New Express Daily said yesterday. Up to 1,000 people, mostly in their 20s, clogged downtown Guangzhou, holding signs and shouting slogans, to show support for their native language.
No one was hurt in the protest, which caused traffic jams and lasted about three hours.
Police said the rumor grew out of a political adviser's proposal that Guangzhou's main television company broadcast more programs in Mandarin to cater to migrant workers who couldn't understand the local dialect.
But the rumor spread that the Guangzhou government would ban Cantonese broadcasting in Guangzhou. The non-existent ban sparked a "culture war" in local online forums. Some said they have to protect Cantonese, which is also spoken in Hong Kong and Macau, so that it won't be supplanted by Mandarin.
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