The words printed on a red banner hanging in the main entrance of a primary school in Guangzhou read: 'Speak Putonghua, write standardised characters, use civilised language, be a civilised person.' Guangzhou was a city that once set the standard for the Cantonese-speaking community.
'It is a common practice; many schools are doing the same,' said Yao Cheuk, an artists' agent in the city. 'They are doing this because it is national policy to promote Putonghua. From time to time, there is news that kids have been punished for speaking Cantonese in schools. It is outrageous. They are eliminating Cantonese.'
Angry about the official bias, Yao went on to explain the superiority of Cantonese, which he described as a more mature language with a richer linguistic history than Putonghua. He cited soccer player David Beckham's name to illustrate his arguments. Cantonese translates his family name using two characters, while Putonghua uses four.
'You know why?' asked Yao. 'Because Cantonese is an ancient language that has a rich phonetic system, it takes only one character in Cantonese to mimic the English sound 'ham', whereas it takes Putonghua two Chinese characters.'
He pointed out that Putonghua has only 23 vowel sounds, while Cantonese has 59, leaving Putonghua to rely heavily on the context for meaning.
Yao's friend, surnamed Pang, stressed they were not anti-Putonghua. 'Language is for people to communicate. I speak Putonghua whenever there are people whose native tongue is not Cantonese,' the college student said. 'Kids will do the same when they need to communicate with their friends. Why force us to abandon our native language?'
Both insist on using Cantonese pronunciations to spell their names in English. Pang and Yao are among a group of Guangzhou natives who fear for the future of Cantonese in the capital of Guangdong. Their worries are not without basis. For example, more than 80 per cent of cabbies do not speak Cantonese and often drivers will suggest that Cantonese speakers use Putonghua for directions.