Meet the Hong Kong academics fighting to safeguard the Cantonese language

WATCH: Scholars at Chinese University and University of California promote the study and use of Cantonese at a time when many in Hong Kong may feel resigned to the dominance of Putonghua

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Ben Au Yeung Wai-ho, senior lecturer in Chinese in the department of Chinese language and literature at the Chinese University of Hong Kong. Photo: Bruce Yan

Published: 6:30am, 11 May 2016Updated: 6:02pm, 25 Jun 2018

It’s an indication of Ben Au Yeung Wai-hoo’s mastery of Cantonese and creativity that he manages to explain how to swear in the dialect without resorting to any foul language. A senior lecturer in Chinese at the Chinese University of Hong Kong, Au Yeung was filming his language lesson for a recent segment of EatLaMen, a dining and leisure programme produced by Television Broadcasts (TVB).

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The academic has been appearing on Hong Kong television for the past 10 years to promote the learning of Cantonese, and he’s happy to ham it up if that helps get the material across to his audience. For Sidewalk Scientist, another TVB show, he plays different characters, from wing chun grandmaster Ip Man to Manabu Yukawa, the fictional sleuth in the Japanese TV series Detective Galileo, to teach Cantonese.

Au Yeung, who writes his own scripts and appears on TVB unpaid, says he enjoys providing such edutainment.

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“I want to bridge the gap between academia and the public. Cantonese is a huge [cultural] treasure.”

There are many elements in Cantonese that make it suitable for humour, says Au Yeung.

A self-professed fan of actor-director Stephen Chow Sing-chi’s comedies and Dayo Wong Tze-wah’s stand-up shows, he says: “Both of them know a lot about Cantonese and use it to make people laugh.”

At a time when many Hongkongers fear that the city’s culture and identity is gradually being lost as it is further integrated into Chinese systems, the role of Cantonese often becomes a sensitive issue. An Education Bureau proposal in February to emphasise the learning of Putonghua and adopt simplified Chinese characters in Hong Kong schools raised hackles across the community, with TVB’s decision to use simplified characters in subtitling its Putonghua newscasts adding fuel to the fire.

Ben Au Yeung uses humour to teach Cantonese. Photo: Bruce Yan

Plenty of road signs, restaurant menus and public notices display simplified Chinese characters to cater to Chinese residents and tourists. More significantly, about 70 per cent of 600 primary schools in Hong Kong and 40 per cent of its 500-plus secondary schools already use Putonghua for their Chinese-language lessons.

Some Hongkongers have tried to protect their mother tongue by developing web-based resources such as words.hk, an online Cantonese dictionary, and a pictorial representation of common Cantonese idioms.