I had an appointment in an
unfamiliar part of town the other day, and was at the mercy of a taxi driver to
get me there. I started giving him directions in my smattering of Cantonese
when he interrupted cheerfully and confidently in English to assure me he would
take me to my destination.
When I complimented him on his
command of the language, he said he was learning and practising, and never
missed the chance to try out his English whenever a non-Chinese passenger
climbed into his vehicle. I couldn’t help thinking: “If only our government
officials had this guy’s attitude.”
Let me say this with
absolute conviction and justification: The standard of English in this former
British colony is appalling, and the biggest culprit you can blame for this
sorry state of affairs is the Hong Kong SAR government.
I’m not speaking as your
stereotypical whingeing expatriate bemoaning the loss of the colonial era, now
that Hong Kong is well and truly part of China.
I’m just saying if most
people feel Cantonese and Putonghua are more important than English in what is
essentially another city in China, and that’s the “reality” we non-natives
should face, then say so. I’m perfectly fine with that.
People like me will go
gently into the night. Just don’t pretend this is a bi-lingual town, or “Asia’s
World City”. Don’t keep paying lip service to the importance of English to us
as an international language while giving it no importance at all in practice.
In the nearly two decades
since Hong Kong’s handover to Chinese sovereignty, I’ve watched the SAR
government systematically ignore and undermine the use of English.
Except for press conferences
to announce major policy decisions once in a blue moon, nearly all of the
government’s interaction with the media and the public is conducted in
Cantonese without simultaneous interpretation in English.
Yes, the Information
Services Department does run an English-language website and government
departments do issue press releases in English, but that’s far from adequate.
Just last week, after the
police fiasco in arresting the wrong man in a murder investigation and making
him do the perp-walk without even realising he was autistic, the whole town was
waiting for an explanation and possible apology from the force.
A Chinese-language police
statement was released at night, which the television stations immediately
interpreted as the widely demanded public apology.
They didn’t bother to
release a statement in English, and we had to call the head of the Police
Public Relations Branch to find out that it was “an expression of regret” and
not a formal apology. It would have been lost in translation otherwise.
To put it into context for
our readers from outside Hong Kong, making a public apology is a big deal in
this part of the world. It’s a loss of face, above all else.
We’re only talking about the
little old Hong Kong police force here, but on a larger scale, this cultural
taboo is evident in such sticking points as Japan’s refusal to say a
straightforward “I’m sorry” to China over its wartime atrocities, even at the
risk of further antagonism or open conflict at a national level. That’s why the
clarification in English was so important in the police case.
I’ve banged my head against
this wall of passive resistance many times in my career.
Last year, when I was still
in charge of ATV’s English news, I decided to make a stand and called out
former Law Society president Ambrose Lam on air for refusing to answer a
reporter’s question in English at a press conference.
What I found particularly
galling was Lam’s curt reply that he had already answered the question in
Cantonese and she should get it translated.
I didn’t realise I had
tapped into a wellspring of public concern over this issue – we were literally
flooded with messages of outrage against Lam and support for our stance. It was
a real eye-opener.
To be fair to Lam, he’s not
the first person to be criticised for displaying this strange aversion to
English in public. Financial Secretary John Tsang did it once on my watch to
another reporter, telling her to get his reply translated. The difference was
that unlike Lam, Tsang was pleasant about it, apologising and claiming to be in
a rush.
Now he’s back to floating
important policy ideas in Chinese-only blogs, along with the rest of the
ministers. What’s with that, really? Is it so unthinkable for these people to
simultaneously release an English version?
They have a whole bunch of
English-proficient staff on the payroll, many of them former expatriate
journalists, whose job is to do just that. Put them to work, for God’s sake.
There’s something terribly
wrong with our education system when it’s churning out graduates who need
serious help with their English.
This is not something you
can pin entirely on our schools and teachers, although they have plenty to
answer for. The government has to take the lead – and I don’t mean with
half-baked education policies such as mother-tongue teaching which, far from
improving the situation, has proved counter-productive.
It also doesn’t help that
our youngsters are not helping themselves. During the times I’ve taught
students or given motivational talks to them in Hong Kong, I’ve often come
across this curious phenomenon in which those who are bold enough to speak in
English in class are silenced or discouraged by peer pressure.
They’re seen as smart alecks
or teacher’s pets by their “cooler” classmates. Go figure.
It’s quite telling that I
have to refer to a taxi driver’s shining example as proof that Hong Kong’s
English-language conundrum can be solved. It’s mostly a matter of attitude.
Yonden Lhatoo
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