Standard Mandarin

UK was escape hatch for New Territories' poor

22 Jul 2012

Of all the Chinese who have emigrated from Hong Kong to the UK, the vast majority have been from the New Territories.

10:02PM

On Chinese characters, all in Hong Kong should be on the same page

15 Jun 2012

A small educational institution I am involved with recently received a complaint: it teaches its young students to write Chinese using simplified characters.

5:38PM

Chinese skills of children on the slide

11 Jun 2012

The Chinese language skills of the city's children are in decline, say teachers and tutors, who blame the ease with which Chinese characters can be typed on mobile phones and computers.

5:16PM

Who said it?

27 May 2012

In the medium to long term, Cantonese is an endangered language

Dr Stephen Matthews, a University of Hong Kong linguist who is calling on the government to review its policy of...

3:57PM

Brash Russian cellist puts his foot in it

18 May 2012

Anti-foreigner sentiment was further inflamed yesterday after a video clip showing an expatriate insulting a woman on the Shenyang-Beijing train went viral.

3:10PM

Getting into characters

18 Mar 2012

I remember being surprised, about eight years ago, when the boss of the research agency I worked for suggested that my colleagues and I took Putonghua lessons. At the time, almost nobody in...

10:26AM

Opinion

EU fails to adapt to borderless world

5 comments

4:35AM

Howard Winn

Ferry companies shouldn't be subsidised while they burn dirty fuel

2:53AM

Chinese moving up beside English

As China rises, a knowledge of Putonghua is being seen as an economic necessity, alongside the ability to speak English, in Southeast Asia.

Bilingualism, though, isn't easy.

...

9:14AM

There's much more to mainlanders than nouveau riche and impolite tourists

As a master's student who has lived in Hong Kong for half a year and come to the city several times before that as a tourist, I sometimes feel embarrassed and uncomfortable being called a '...

7:20AM

Auntie on the case

Domestic helpers who cook and clean for expatriate families are among Beijing's most effective Putonghua coaches to young children. In fact many ayi (aunties) are proud of this role, gently...

7:16AM

Cachet of cash

I am a native Putonghua speaker and, all my life, I remember trying to hide it. Only recently have I truly begun coming out of the language closet.

6:58AM

Quotes of the week

In front of imperialists, [Hongkongers] are dogs. But in front of Chinese, they are wolves. These people are residues of colonialism

Peking University intellectual Kong Qingdong

...

5:59AM

No need for shouting at your own people

With animosity like this, we don't need racism. We used to despise mainlanders because they were poor country bumpkins. Now we hate them because they are too rich.

5:52AM