My parents were having an interesting conversation at the dinner table tonight about Chinese culture They were telling me how they were worried about our generation losing our traditional Chinese identity, even with more and more sai lo sounding more like gwai lo... When my friend showed me this video today of (i'm assuming) Chinese people speaking English, it made me think about how their accent really does make them seem "gwai lo" wor... [video=youtube;XEaiLtrH4HI]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XEaiLtrH4HI"[/video] -what? what do you think the Chinese identity will be like in a decades time?
The video doesn't surprise me much. I mean, if people are born and/or grew up in a country they are likely to speak that country's language without any foreign accents... this seems natural to me.
when i went to the german company in hk for internship... they all were like "OMG your german is really good!!". i think having 2 different culture is a great thing, most important is you should know the differences. and i was glad that my parents forbid us to talk german at home. i dont think that i will ever "lose" my chinese identity.
yeah i guess so.. -tongue2 if you close your eyes and listen, their accents are so scarily gwai lo haha
What I like to point out is how people (in general) remain focused on language as being a sole part of culture. I remember once when a white guy (who I was just introduced to), said to me, "wow, your English is really good," to which I replied, straight faced and absolutely without any irony, "as a matter of fact, so is your's." There are currently thousands of gwai lo living and working in China who speak better Chinese than even some native born Chinese. The same goes with English (and other language) speaking ethnic Chinese living overseas. IMHO, traditional identifiers like race and language, can no longer be solely used to define what culture is, as the world becomes increasingly cosmopolitan. I remember once (in New York) being called to translate for a old Chinese woman who didn't speak English. After speaking with her, I found out that she was born in Hong Kong but had, at 4 years of age, emigrated to Venezuela, where she lived most of her life. She had only moved to New York recently to be closer to her children. Upon hearing this, I immediately switched to Spanish and asked if she understood me. She lit up and happily replied (translated) "Of course, and I'm so glad that you can speak in Spanish too, as my Chinese isn't really so good. I learned it from my parents but I never really had to use it. I'm much more fluent in Spanish." The irony of this was, the people who had originally called upon me to translate for them, nearly all of them spoke Spanish.
^ thas happened to me before as well....the 1st time i met one of my friend...he was like "whoa ya english is ubbber good.." my friend knows i was a bbc and replied "yesh shes mastered the accent in 2 days pro huh...".... so ummm from the youtube clipy..your point is theres no chinglish accent..?...-huh
lol i dont get it, no accent english means losing Chinese identity? btw, that clip...doesnt she have British accent? HK learned British English so.....i...dont get it :/
"lol i dont get it, no accent english means losing Chinese identity? btw, that clip...doesnt she have British accent? HK learned British English so.....i...dont get it " Neither do I. Accent or no accent, that would not affect one's Chinese identity.
...lol i dont get it, no accent english means losing Chinese identity? btw, that clip...doesnt she have British accent? HK learned British English so.....i...dont get it :/ Neither do I. Accent or no accent, that would not affect one's Chinese identity.
ok, I know alot of chinese who can speak fluent English and they are FOBs with no chinese accent when speaking. I don't care how they speak. One thing I dislike is White-Washed Asians. Yuck!
Agreed! There's nothing wrong with having both fluent English and Cantonese/Chinese. What I hate the most is the ATTITUDE. Those White-Washed Asians piss the hell out of me.
This is exactly the same for me, altho my chinese is still not as good as it can be, i am very glad that my parents forbid me to speak English at home. My dad got really worried since i kept speaking English all the time, actually Cantonese is my first language but since i started school and with less seeing my parents around i just never developed my Chinese language level further than what i already knew. My brother (the lucky one) grew up in HK, so he's Chines is perfect! and he came over when he was a teenager and now speaks really good English as well. As a result, my first and mother-tongue language happens to be WORSE than my second language! D: how horrible >< i also never really went to Chinese school since i lived in a village with no other asians around.... >_> Actually recently when i went back home for Easter break (i'm at uni now) i've been told my Chinese is quite bad, that i have an ''accent" when i speak Chinese?! D: i always knew my Chinese wasn't up to scratch but to be told i had a weird foreign-ish accent was the worst, i must sound so stupid T_T (it was probs due to teh lack of speaking in Chinese since i'm away from my family) but what's worse is one of my hk friends saying that a "gwai lo" spoke Canto better than me (she only learned a bit coz her ex was Chinese) and he kept repeating it -_-" Edit: going back to the topic lol i actually think that sometimes, us BBCs or CBCs (wherever! ) are more traditional then some Chinese natives in China/ Hk or Taiwan. Coz our parents will hav their traditions from their respective place and that's what they will teach us and we will probs teach our kids, while in the native country things may start to change and become less traditional or the culture may change bit by bit. Although i can understand where the parents are coming from, coz if u can't speak or understand the language, it kinda means you have no 'contact' with it AT ALL. It's kinda impossible really, and coz u don't understand it you probs are not interested in it at all... therefore making contact even less! but the fact that we're on this forum kinda means we are interested aren't we? so at least we know something! compared to not knowing anything about our culture and traditions. :]
I think its part of the parents job to teach their children chinese. And by teaching I don't mean just the language, if they socialize more in chinese while taking their young kids with them .. that would help. Having cousins and people the same age as their kids speaking chinese is also helping. Speech is basic human communication, its only natural for people to base their first judgement on the way you talk or even the language you can or cannot speak.
just because they "sound" white doesn't mean they are. They may still retain a lot of the asian values. personally I don't like how Asians dye their hair blonde. Are they trying to be more white? Because I don't think it looks good at all. The blonde hair kinda blend in with their skin color. It looks hideous to me. Like the girl in the video, she would look a lot more hot and natural with black or brown hair color.
I don't really care about it. There are enough traditional Chinese people who keeps our traditions alive.
