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of English. Ever since I entered the Council in April, 1965, I have spared no effort in realizing this my worthy idea. I remember that in August, 1965, I raised three questions concerning the adoption of the Chinese language in the Urban Council and the Urban Services Department. Two months later, in October, 1965, I proposed a formal Motion with a view to urging this Council and the Government in general to use Chinese when communicating with Chinese people. This Motion was carried. About half a year later, in April, 1966, I asked a question why there was delay in carrying out my Motion of adopting Chinese language, i.e. to introduce dual language system into the Urban Council. As a result of my question, then we had a mock meeting using dual languages in October, 1966 in the City Hall. After many excuses concerning the difficulty of simultaneous interpretation, the matter has rested there without any further progress.
Nobody ever challenged the desirability of using local language in a local Council such as the Urban Council in Hong Kong. We really cannot allow the technical details or difficulties to impede the application of a sound principle if we are sincere about it. In my view, this matter becomes more urgent now because there is the practical difficulty to find candidates for participating in the election due partly to the unnecessary language barrier. This phenomenon becomes more serious as years have gone by.
I remember the Governor, Sir David Trench, has said before a meeting of Hong Kong Newspaper Society in October, 1966 that “Local Authorities must be local, enabling local initiative to be exercised in the management of purely local affairs within their scope". Unless we could have co-operation and participation of those public-spirited citizens of Hong Kong, the apathetic attitude of the general public towards the Urban Council election would continue. The use of dual languages (Chinese and English) in the Urban Council is indeed an indispensable and important step to realize the right principle enunciated by the Governor concerning the local authorities more than two years ago. The adoption of simultaneous translation in the Council should be put into practice without any delay; I would say within the next twelve months. I wish I could have the support and guidance of this Council.
MR. B. A. BERNACCHI:- Mr. Chairman, it gives me much pleasure to second this motion, particularly as I was the one few years ago who originally moved the Motion about simultaneous translation. It was then referred to a special select committee to investigate the feasibility and, apart from a few experiments at the City Hall, has not seen the light of day again.
No one knows more than I the difficulties of simultaneous translation. We must accept that at first there will be mistakes, but various student bodies have shown the way. They have already used simultaneous translation at most of their public meetings, whilst we have been experimenting they have been doing. The Chinese have an expression for this, "Lo Yan Mo Darm" which being translated is elderly people have no guts. Are we elderly people? Have we no guts?
The fact that in a predominantly Chinese speaking community, we, the Council, which likes to think is nearest to the people of Hong Kong and deals with the every day life of the Citizens of Hong Kong, holds its meetings exclusively in English. This is basically wrong in the modern world, when simultaneous translation has for many years now been established as the media for people of different races to come together. It has been said that there are two entirely different questions here: (1) the question of audiences, which could perhaps be met by a running commentary in Cantonese and (2) the question of eventual Chinese members who do not speak English. I do not think that these are two different questions. It is, I think, two different examples of the same question. I know that to get non-English-speaking members onto the Council, we must amend the Ordinance, but that is not very difficult. The Public Health and Urban Services Ordinance has been amended before in various ways, especially when the Government wanted to do so, for instance, the role of the Urban Services Department vis-a-vis, the Urban Council.
In a cosmopolitan city like Hong Kong I personally am in favour of a citizen trying to be multi-linguistic. I myself try, very badly I am afraid, to speak Cantonese and my friend, the Proposer, speaks a number of languages. But nevertheless, very good people who could make a tremendous contribution to our work are being excluded from this Council Chamber because they do not speak sufficient English to qualify as an Urban Councillor. Just as an example, the Reform Club quite a few years ago now, introduced bilingualism at all its Executive Committee Meetings which enabled non-English-speaking Chinese members to become members of the Executive Committee. Since then the Reform Club has been very much better informed of what the man in the street thinking and the non-English-speaking members of the Executive Committee have added much to the Reform Club's voice in the local political scenes of today.
I am well aware that in the new proposals on local Government reform, which I hope, will be laid on the table at the next meeting, there is a time schedule, but members will be already acquainted with these proposals and in my submission this Motion is not seriously in conflict with it. We need a date to aim for instead of just being content with saying simultaneous translation will be introduced eventually.
I hear that interpreters at the United Nations train in simultaneous translation by having two ear-phones plugged into their respective two
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of English. Ever since I entered the Council in April, 1965, I have spared no effort in realizing this my worthy idea. I remember that in August, 1965, I raised three questions concerning the adoption of the Chinese language in the Urban Council and the Urban Services Depart- ment. Two months later, in October, 1965, I proposed a formal Motion with a view to urging this Council and the Government in general to use Chinese when communicating with Chinese people. This Motion was carried. About half a year later, in April, 1966, I asked a question why there was delay in carrying out my Motion of adopting Chinese language, i.e. to introduce dual language system into the Urban Council. As a result of my question, then we had a mock meeting using dual languages in October, 1966 in the City Hall. After many excuses con- cerning the difficulty of simultaneous interpretation, the matter has rested there without any further progress.
Nobody ever challenged the desirability of using local language in a local Council such as the Urban Council in Hong Kong. We really cannot allow the technical details or difficulties to impede the applica- tion of a sound principle if we are sincere about it. In my view, this matter becomes more urgent now because there is the practical difficulty to find candidates for participating in the election due partly to the unnecessary language barrier. This phenomenon becomes more serious as years have gone by.
I remember the Governor, Sir David TRENCH, has said before a meeting of Hong Kong Newspaper Society in October, 1966 that “Local Authorities must be local, enabling local initiative to be exercised in the management of purely local affairs within their scope". Unless we could have co-operation and participation of those public-spirited citizens of Hong Kong, the apathetic attitude of the general public towards the Urban Council election would continue. The use of dual languages (Chinese and English) in the Urban Council is indeed an indispensable and important step to realize the right principle enunciat- ed by the Governor concerning the local authorities more than two years ago. The adoption of simultaneous translation in the Council should be put into practice without any delay; I would say within the next twelve months. I wish I could have the support and guidance of this Council.
MR. B. A. BERNACCHI:-Mr. Chairman, it gives me much pleasure to second this motion, particularly as I was the one few years ago who originally moved the Motion about simultaneous translation. It was then referred to a special select committee to investigate the feasibility and, apart from a few experiments at the City Hall, has not seen the light of day again.
No one knows more than I the difficulties of simultaneous transla- tion. We must accept that at first there will be mistakes, but various
HONG KONG URBAN COUNCIL
411
student bodies have shown the way. They have already used simul- taneous translation at most of their public meetings, whilst we have been experimenting they have been doing. The Chinese have an expres- sion for this, "Lo Yan Mo Darm" which being translated is elderly people have no guts. Are we elderly people? Have we no guts?
The fact that in a predominantly Chinese speaking community, we, the Council, which likes to think is nearest to the people of Hong Kong and deals with the every day life of the Citizens of Hong Kong, holds its meetings exclusively in English. This is basically wrong in the modern world, when simultaneous translation has for many years now been established as the media for people of different races to come together. It has been said that there are two entirely different questions here: (1) the question of audiences, which could perhaps be met by a running commentary in Cantonese and (2) the question of eventual Chinese members who do not speak English. I do not think that these are two different questions. It is, I think, two different examples of the same question. I know that to get non-English-speaking members onto the Council, we must amend the Ordinance, but that is not very difficult. The Public Health and Urban Services Ordinance has been amended before in various ways, especially when the Government wanted to do so, for instance, the role of the Urban Services Department vis-a-vis, the Urban Council.
In a cosmopolitan city like Hong Kong I personally am in favour of a citizen trying to be multi-linguistic. I myself try, very badly I am afraid, to speak Cantonese and my friend, the Proposer, speaks a number of languages. But nevertheless, very good people who could make a tremendous contribution to our work are being excluded from this Council Chamber because they do not speak sufficient English to qualify as an Urban Councillor. Just as an example, the Reform Club quite a few years ago now, introduced bilingualism at all its Executive Committee Meetings which enabled non-English-speaking Chinese members to become members of the Executive Committee. Since then the Reform Club has been very much better informed of what the man in the street thinking and the non-English-speaking members of the Executive Committee have added much to the Reform Club's voice in the local political scenes of today.
I am well aware that in the new proposals on local Government reform, which I hope, will be laid on the table at the next meeting, there is a time schedule, but members will be already acquainted with these proposals and in my submission this Motion is not seriously in conflict with it. We need a date to aim for instead of just being content with saying simultaneous translation will be introduced eventually.
I hear that interpreters at the United Nations train in simultaneous translation by having two ear-phones plugged into their respective two
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