Chinese supermarket refuses to use local dialect to broadcast appeal to find grandmother who could not speak Mandarin
Woman who became separated from her mother and children asked staff to broadcast an appeal in the language the older woman could understand but was told it would only use the standard dialect
Staff at a supermarket in central China refused to use a local dialect when issuing appeals to find a missing grandmother – insisting on the use of the official language even though the woman could not understand it, a local newspaper has reported.
A woman with the surname Ni had taken her children and 60-year-old mother shopping at a three-storey store in Zhengzhou, the capital of Henan province, on Sunday.
She became separated from them when she went to eat at the canteen while her mother took the children off to play.
But when Ni asked the supermarket help desk to make an announcement in her mother’s local Henan dialect, they refused, local paper Dahe News reported earlier this week.
Staff said they would only broadcast in Mandarin, which her mother, who is from a rural village, cannot understand.