14
}
Hongkong: WAR OF WORDS
STUDENT groups feel they have found a vital chink in the armour of this British colony's administration. Under- graduates mainly from the Chinese Uni- versity have worked up considerable momentum for their campaign to have Chinese made one of Hongkong's official languages.
Supporters of this move have invested
in tee-shirts (on which some local in- dustrialist is no doubt making a hand- some profit) sporting their symbol of defiance of official language policies — a clenched red fist. The colour has no political significance for the moment at any rate; and the symbol seems a direct borrowing from the Negro militants of the US.
The background to the campaign has puzzled many observers. For several years, officialdom has been ultra: sensi- tive about the language issue and efforts have been made to see that as many forms and official letters as possible are bilingual. But mounting interest by -Chinese University students in the lan- guage question has been on the cards for years.
It was only a matter of time before they woke up to the fact that prospects in both government and business are severely limited for Chinese University graduates partly by the low academic standards inevitable in a new university and partly because of their lack of fluency in English. Although student leaders are not saying so publicly, many youngsters backing the campaign feel their chances of getting good jobs will be improved if less English is used in the colony.
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The students are battling against the tide of change in Hongkong. The num- bers of young people speaking reason- able English are rising steadily. Many
into factories youngsters going into ordinary workers (and not just the white-collar groups) speak better English than the products of the Chinese University. These young work- ers are determined to capitalise on their linguistic ability wherever possible.
Furthermore, the days when a busi- nessman could get to the top with Chinese only are fast fading because of the total dependence of the colony's economy on overseas markets. Factory owners today have to be able to speak to their foreign buyers in English. In cash terms, the cream of the careers and promotion will go more and more to the bilingual.
University students have joined forces
SEPTEMBER 26, 1970
with members of the Urban Council, the only administrative body (albeit a lowly one) with an elected clement among its membership. The force behind this line- up is a recognition by clected council- lors that language is a good stick with which to beat the government.
Although the average Hongkong re- sident is not about to undervalue fluent English in dollars and cents, he is proud of being Chinese and of his culture. Anything which recognises more formal- ly the merits of Chinese culture auto- matically evokes strong emotional sup- port from the community.
Thus the government is having to pay far more attention to the language cam- paign than most other outbreaks of student agitation. Official reaction was initially a massive exercise in hamfisted- ness by Ronald Holmes, the secretary for home affairs, whose immaculate Chinese is streets ahead of that of most Europeans in the colony.
The authorities. have been forced to backtrack rapidly, promising to set up a committee to inquire into the use of Chinese in government. The administra- to let the tion carefully omitted public know this will be the second in- quiry of its kind since 1968. The first is apparently buried under piles of other files in some mandarin's in-tray.
At present, Hongkong's courts and the Executive, Legislative and Urban Councils are compelled to use English. Many more people would be able to serve as jurors and members of these councils if Chinese and English enjoyed equal status.
An inescapable obstacle would re- A red fist: No political significance — yet.
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By A Correspondent
main the question of adequate transla. tion. Many bodies use both languages freely in their proceedings already (and virtually all contacts between civil ser- vants and members of the public are in Chinese). However even with reasonable simultaneous translation facilities, these a modest groups can only achieve standard of bilingual efficiency as long as the bulk of their members have at least an elementary grasp of both English and Chinese.
The interpretation bottleneck is dra-t matised daily in the courts, a cause of injustice generally ignored even by the language campaign supporters. In many cases, interpreters botch their work and sometimes render completely wrong; translations. Worse still, frequently a de-f fendant hears all the evidence presented against him but can understand only that given in Chinese as the testimony. Speeches in English are not translated. Those on criminal charges are thus usually deprived of an opportunity to guide their lawyers on the accuracy of witnesses who elect to speak in English - often giving key prosecution eviden-
ce.
The case for having the bulk of what takes place in magistrates' courts con- ducted in Chinese is overwhelming from the point of view of natural justice. This. would solve the problem of men con- victed because they use an expression for "let us leave", for instance, which can also mean "let's beat it"; and the of- ficial interpreter, against the context, chooses to indicate the more sinister meaning.
The language campaign could be the start for serious agitation against the government. It is a battle on which the administration will be compelled to findį some concessions for Chinese cultural pride. But practical solutions are hard to see. Chinese already is counted as equal to English in applying for naturalisation, for instance; the education system now permits students to go all the way to degree-level in Chinese. And even if a law is passed stating Chinese and English are of equal status, someone will have to decide which "Chinese" is meant.
The language of Hongkong is Can- tonese, a dialect only spoken not writ- ten. Some community leaders are advo- cating the use of more Mandarin in the colony. This sounds attractive but is likely to meet passive resistance from the man in the street who regards Man- darin as an unpleasant bid for cultural domination by the northern Chinese.
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FAR EASTERN ECONOMIC REVIEW