ENG-1961 — Page 26

REVIEW

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Only 9.7% said they knew English; they included the 1.2% for whom English is the usual language.

The total number of persons aged five and over who knew neither English nor Cantonese was 106,825 of whom two-thirds were women, the largest three categories being 25,227 Hoklo women, 16,593 Hakka women and 13,488 Sze Yap women. Since there is not only a sex correlation but also an age correlation, almost all young boys being now familiar with Cantonese, the chances of finding a household in any part of Hong Kong of which no member can understand either Cantonese or English are now infinitesimal.

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Associated with the training of the staff was the training of the public. Several million simple leaflets were printed in Chinese and distributed throughout the Colony. A smaller number of booklets were issued in each language, showing in rather more detail the objects of the census and asking for public co-operation: these went mainly to colleges, schools, kaifongs, rural committees and associations. The newly established film unit of the Information Services Department produced four three-minute publicity films in Cantonese which were widely shown in second and third run cinemas, and a twenty-minute film (incorporating some of the sequences from the publicity films) for the training of enumerators. Finally, since it appeared that the campaign of publicity was not effectively reaching the English-speaking population, a short feature with English commentary was made from the previous films and shown on Television.

There were also many talks and newspaper articles both in English and Chinese, and as the time of each census operation approached, frequent talks, discussions and announcements from local broadcasting stations ensured that nobody who could hear would have any excuse for not knowing what was expected of him or her to make the Colony's first modern census a success.

Of particular interest was the approach to the boat people, amongst whom, from the absence of fixed habitations, the majority are unschooled and illiterate. The weather forecast for fishermen goes over the air four times a day in Cantonese, and during the ten days before the census of boat people every forecast was accompanied by a short announcement about the census. The response to these announcements by the boat people generally