My Take | Students must stop blaming their woes on the rise of Mandarin
What we have is a disaffected minority covering up their own sense of inadequacy under the guise of a radicalised localism
Last September, localist radical Alvin Cheng Kam-mun was fined HK$3,000 for dumping library books in what he considered an attempt to protect children from the “cultural invasion” of simplified Chinese characters. Today, some Baptist University students are up in arms against mandatory Mandarin courses, with widespread peer support from other universities.
Many critics see such resistance as part of a youthful localist reaction against mainland cultural invasion. Those young people, they claim, see Mandarin and its simplified writing script as the language of the enemy.
There is something to that observation. However, I think many university students have more than a functional grasp of Mandarin, so we may only be hearing from a vocal minority.
Still, the passions and hatred displayed by some students seem to indicate something deeper and more primal. It may have something to do with what University of Hong Kong council chairman Arthur Li Kwok-cheung calls “the loser mentality”. There is a more fanciful French word, ressentiment, used by the German philosopher Friedrich Nietzsche to denote something similar.
