Are Hong Kong students becoming frogs in a well?
Linguistic website Ethnologue says 372 million people have English as a first language and 612 million use it as a second language, giving a worldwide English-speaker headcount of 982 million. Putonghua has 1.09 billion firstlanguage speakers while 194 million use it as their second language, giving a total of 1.29 billion Putonghua speakers. These two languages are the most spoken languages in the world, with Putonghua speakers outnumbering those using English. However, in science and commerce, English is still the predominant language being used.
According to recent media reports, the Hong Kong Baptist University has had a Putonghua proficiency requirement for graduation since 2012. Students who do not want to attend Putonghua classes may sit an assessment exam to demonstrate proficiency and gain exemption. This year, about 70 percent of those sitting the exemption exam failed; this provoked unruly demonstrations by students. The students knew the policy. It was not something just dumped on them in their last year. So why display this sudden, unprecedented hysteria?
What is the use of languages? Language is required for communication. The English language spread around the globe during the era of Pax Britannica, and it happened that Pax Americana which followed it was also English speaking. The language “English” thus became the most commonly used language in science and commerce. A non-United Kingdom or non-United States citizen speaking English is no longer considered to be using a language of their ex-colonial master. It is just a matter of practicality.
The Chinese mainland is now the secondlargest economy in the world. In 2016, for the first time, the mainland published more scientific papers than the US. So whether one is involved in science and technology, or in commerce, those two facts are going to be of importance. The people of Hong Kong, being at the crossroads of East and West, must be equipped to operate in the English language, and increasingly the Chinese language, which in this case means Putonghua. Most Chinese scientific papers were published in English but The Atlantic last year reported on the meeting of the Association of the Advancement of Artificial Intelligence, and quoted Andrew Ng, a well-known scientist in that field: “After a recent international meeting in Barcelona, he recalls seeing Chinese language writeups of the talks circulate right away. He never found any in English. The language issue creates a kind of asymmetry: Chinese researchers usually speak English so they have the benefit of access to all the work disseminated in English. The English-speaking community, on the other hand, is much less likely to have access to work within the Chinese AI community.” As if to underscore the importance of not just relying on English-language science publications, the Smithsonian Institute, in an article as far back as 2012, pointed out how scientists in 2004 missed a clue regarding the deadly H5N1 avian flu. The first warning signal was in a Chinese-language journal.
Celebrities such as Mark Zuckerberg are learning Putonghua; US President Donald Trump’s granddaughter has even demonstrated her proficiency in Putonghua; in fact, scores of Wall Street high fliers began learning Putonghua 15 to 20 years ago to facilitate interaction with their Chinese counterparts. Putonghua classes are mushrooming all over metropolitan cities in the UK, US and other countries, thanks to the scores of Confucius Institutes, where Putonghua is taught, which were established around the world in the past 10 years.
In a demonstration of pragmatism, some Thai high schools make Putonghua a mandatory subject. Clearly those HKBU students who objected to studying Putonghua are needlessly limiting their competitiveness in the workplace. University education is supposed to prepare one for the future and HKBU was right to ensure graduates achieve a certain Putonghua proficiency before graduating them.
As a practicing physician in Singapore, I find many patients are ethnic Chinese Indonesians who speak mainly Putonghua and Bahasa Indonesia. The only way I could communicate with them is in Putonghua. I am also a principal mediator of the Singapore Mediation Centre, and am often called upon to serve as volunteer mediator at the State Courts where I have to deal with cases involving mainland citizens who work in Singapore. So even in Southeast Asia, Putonghua mastery is crucial in various professional practices. Isn’t it obvious that Putonghua fluency is all the more important in Hong Kong?
Quite aside from the practical benefits of learning Putonghua, to see students behaving in such an obnoxious manner is most reprehensible, as a proper university student is expected to be a person of learning, but also of good character. A student might disagree with his teachers, but it should in no way diminish his respect for them. Unfortunately, even this minimum of civility was not observed by certain HKBU students in their recent clash with their teachers.