- Lin Ziqing
- BBC Chinese Contributing Writer
David, 25, from Hong Kong. Mr. Li, 40 years old, from Xi’an.
The two Chinese immigrants had never met before; following immigrating to the United Kingdom, they were also separated from each other – one lived in Manchester in the north, and the other settled in London.
Who would have thought that these two originally unrelated Chinese people have recently experienced the misunderstandings, misunderstandings and contradictions between Cantonese and Mandarin speakers that began to appear in the British Chinese community in the BNO immigration wave in Hong Kong at the same time. Wronged”.
BBC Chinese recently interviewed British Chinese, including the two of them, and listened to their stories of misunderstandings, misunderstandings and barriers caused by language.
Note: To protect the privacy of the respondents, the full names are not used in the text.
Chinatown in Manchester, North England
The experience of Hong Kong immigrant David
David grew up in an orphanage in Hong Kong with no blind date since he was a child. He has a middle school education and finally found a telecommunications technology job with a good salary. He used to live a relatively stable and comfortable life in Hong Kong.
Two years ago, he was arrested for participating in an anti-amendment protest and was involved in an illegal assembly. He was worried that he might be arrested once more. Last year, he decided to leave Hong Kong alone and seek safety in the UK.
Unexpectedly, within three weeks of moving to Manchester, he was inadvertently involved in a dispute with mainland Chinese living in the UK because he participated in a rally in support of Hong Kong’s freedom. Allegedly, there were incidents of confrontation and physical confrontation between Hong Kong protesters and anti-rallies and onlookers who mainly spoke Cantonese.
David was once once more “arrested” for his political involvement, this time in the UK.
According to reports, although the British police released him immediately following verifying his innocence through CCTV, what followed was overwhelming reports from the Chinese media. David appeared in some images reported by the media, and his face was so clear that he, a young Hong Kong youth who had just arrived in the UK and had no name, instantly became a representative of the “Hong Kong rioters” described by some Chinese media.
David said that following the owner from mainland China found out that he was participating in the rally, his attitude changed dramatically, from friendly to cold, and then prevented him from returning to his residence and asked him to retrieve his luggage a few days later.
David recounted that the owner accused him of saying, “Because of your participation in this activity, I suspect you are a Hong Kong thug who will endanger the safety of others”.
In this way, David, who came to the UK soon following, lost both his job and his house. David determined that he was fired and evicted from the rental unit because of his political philosophies.
After thinking regarding the whole incident, David felt that the biggest mistake he made was because he trusted Cantonese colleagues around him. Because of the same language, he felt that everyone should have the same idea, so he revealed some of his political ideas. Who knows, not all Cantonese-speaking Chinese are sympathetic to the protests of Hong Kong people.
“I didn’t know there were a lot of ‘lansi’ (pro-CCP) here,” David said. “They have been here (in the UK) for more than ten or twenty years, and everyone speaks Cantonese, and I thought everyone might have a chat. I told them what I was like in Hong Kong, and now I am in the UK once more. how how”.
BBC Chinese tried to contact a Manchester City clothing logistics company who fired David, hoping to hear their explanation, but had not received a reply before the press release.
He encountered such setbacks when he first arrived in the UK. David did not intend to give up, and still hoped to stay in a free country through his own efforts. Due to the lack of English, he still has to continue to look for opportunities to work in Cantonese in the Chinese community.
Although he went around explaining that he had “no political stance”, he allegedly encountered an employer who told him in Cantonese when he was looking for a job, “You have become so well-known in the UK, how do you want me to hire you?”
David lamented that at least one of the lessons from this experience is that the overseas Chinese community is diverse and complex, and speaking Cantonese cannot be a yardstick for judging people’s political stance.
image source,Archyde.com
The helplessness of Mr. Li, a mainland immigrant
As early as 2003, Mr. Li studied in Newcastle, UK from Xi’an, China, studying for a master’s degree in traffic engineering, and immigrated to the UK for nearly 20 years. Conceptually, he has deeply identified with the universal values of democracy and freedom.
In the past few years, he has paid great attention to and sympathized with the demonstrations and protest movements of the Hong Kong people. When he learned that the British government revised the BNO immigration policy and a large number of Hong Kong people began to move to the Greater London area, he ran around with enthusiasm, hoping to participate in the local activities to welcome Hong Kong people and extend friendship to the new Hong Kong immigrants. hand. Unexpectedly, his Mandarin made many Hong Kong people wary, and some people even directly persuaded him to continue to contact Hong Kong immigrants.
Mr. Li relayed the words of a friend around him: “You’d better not go, don’t cause trouble”. What friends are referring to is an event where the community where Mr. Li lives is prepared to welcome new immigrants to Hong Kong.
Mr. Li said rather unhappily: “I support them, but following the arrival of Hong Kong people, no matter whether there are 3721 people who speak Mandarin, they are all enemies.”
When talking regarding this topic at the beginning, Mr. Li’s disappointment was beyond words.
“In their opinion, I am also part of the CCP, and I am also very annoyed.”
During the interview, the BBC reporter found that the situation described by Mr. Li is not unique. Many Chinese from mainland China who agree with democracy and the rule of law are very sympathetic to the democratic struggle of Hong Kong people. As a result, many people are kept away by Hong Kong immigrants because they speak Mandarin.
A pro-democracy activist who teaches at a British university also told the BBC regarding a similar experience – he had actively and enthusiastically hoped to participate in activities to welcome new immigrants from Hong Kong many times, but was coldly declined. The scholar, who did not want to be named, sighed on the one hand, but also expressed understanding on the other hand.
“Looking at what the people of Hong Kong have gone through, they don’t believe the mainlanders can understand,” he said.
The organizer of the event to welcome the Hong Kong people that Mr. Li originally referred to was Richard Choi, the organizer of a Hong Kong people’s association somewhere in London. Having lived in the UK for many years, he also noticed that many Hong Kong people who moved to the UK have not been able to get rid of the “negative sentiments” they formed towards mainlanders when they were in Hong Kong.
image source,Archyde.com
Official figures for 2021 show that as many as 90,000 Hong Kong people will immigrate to the UK
Sociologists analyze phenomena
Jiang Ruiting, an assistant professor at the Department of Sociology at Durham University, believes that the root of the above-mentioned problems in the British Chinese community is that “people who speak Mandarin are equivalent to mainlanders, and those who speak Cantonese are equivalent to Hong Kong people.” Popularity became the basis for continued divergent fermentation.
Jiang Jiang Ruiting pointed out that from the understanding of Hong Kong’s social history, the colonial government’s Cold War propaganda and popular culture, and the intense political contradiction between China and Hong Kong following the handover of sovereignty, make many Hong Kong people easy to think that those who speak Mandarin are “backward and do not support democracy and freedom in the mainland.” people” stereotype.
Zeng Ruisheng, Dean of the Institute of Chinese Studies at the School of Oriental and African Studies, University of London, explained that the first British Chinese community came from the New Territories of Hong Kong, and most of them held the same basic values as the recent group of immigrants who were triggered by the anti-revision movement in Hong Kong.
The other group, the immigrants who came from mainland China later, had a broad political spectrum. Some were exiled from the 1989 pro-democracy incident, some were still loyal to the CCP regime, and most of them drifted between the two.
Zeng Ruisheng also added that there is still a large group of students from mainland China who are often educated, instructed and asked to follow Beijing’s voice, otherwise they may face “consequences” when they return to China.
Therefore, when the Chinese government expressed its opposition to the extension of immigration visa rights to Hong Kong people with BNO (British National (Overseas)) status, some pro-Beijing Chinese also had a negative impression of Hong Kong’s new immigrants.
Language barriers remain
After many experiences, both David and Mr. Li have now chosen to “avoid trouble” – by coincidence, they have adopted an evasive attitude towards different language communities.
Mr. Li said that I still wanted to help them, but at the same time, I was afraid of making them unhappy, so I had to keep a distance. David said that he rarely went to Chinatown now, for fear of being in trouble if someone recognized him.
What is the solution for the current phenomenon of Cantonese-speaking Hong Kong immigrants and Mandarin-speaking mainland immigrants not communicating with each other in the British Chinese community? Jiang Ruiting believes that some deliberate incitement caused by geopolitical wrestling will continue. What the British Chinese community can do to reduce the gap is to make different language groups understand each other more and let more people understand the politics of the Chinese community. , class and cultural diversity, and recognizing the gray areas that exist within them.
Starting from the beginning, she said, “only in this relatively free society can we try to find common ground and lead to a future that respects humanity and freedom.”
