Identity crisis
The identity crisis Hu feels is shared by others in China. A Shanghai resident surnamed Wu told the Global Times he doesn't feel a sense of belonging to any city, doesn't speak any dialect and doesn't even know what regional traditions he connects with. Even though he lived in Shanghai for the most of his childhood, he doesn't recognize it as his hometown in the traditional sense because he cannot speak Shanghaiese.
Zhuang Chusheng, a professor of linguistics at the Guangzhou-based Sun Yat-sen University, has long worried that China isn't doing enough to preserve the local dialects.
At first, pushing for greater Putonghua penetration was the right move, because there were multiple mutually unintelligible dialects being spoken within one area in some regions and it was difficult to carry on the day-to-day work of a modern economy. Zhuang said it was necessary under such circumstances to spread Putonghua, otherwise society's development would have been impeded.
But the situation nowadays is different as the usage of Putonghua has grown exponentially. According to research, the population of fluent speakers has grown over 20 percent in some areas in the last decade. In many areas, it's not even the government driving the popularization of Putonghua, but the market. In these regions, usage of the language is purely voluntary among residents.
Zhuang believes the situation is threatening local dialects, with some smaller dialects facing extinction or already having disappeared.
"For example, the Waxiang dialect used in the Wuling mountainous region in Hunan Province and the She dialect used by the She ethnicity, are near extinction. Some larger authoritative dialects, including the Shanghai dialect, the Xiamen dialect or the Fuzhou dialect are also gradually being spurned by younger generations," he said.
Many young people nowadays have been told to speak Putonghua since they were young, and teachers also imprint upon them the idea that Putonghua and dialects cannot coexist, Zhuang said. Hu also agreed with this, saying she has observed that years of Putonghua-centric education has made many think dialects are outdated and tacky.
Furthermore, there are policies that some argue restrict dialects a little too much. For example, in 2014, the then State Administration of Radio Film and Television (SARFT) announced that all of the country's TV presenters were banned from intentionally speaking non-Putonghua dialects when hosting shows. This was highly debated and vehemently protested by many, especially those in Cantonese-speaking regions.
"The policy on the Chinese language, which came out in 2001, pointed out that dialects can be used on TV under some circumstances, but it needs to be approved by State or provincial radio and TV authorities. It doesn't prohibit local stations from delivering shows in a dialect," Zhuang said. "So this act is wrong."
Many such dialectical shows are popular across China. In Hangzhou, there is a regular news commentary item in the local dialect, as well as in Chongqing and Nanjing. But such shows are often restricted by SARFT and some officials even say such shows need to be forced out of prime time, Zhuang said.
It's also being discussed whether such a policy is being implemented for purpose of national unity.
The government's measure isn't without precedent. During the Qin Dynasty (221-207 BC), the first emperor of China released policies to push for a unified spoken language and writing system to stabilize his rule.
However, the excessive tightness of the policy may have even fostered extremism in the dialect protection circle, Hu said.
"Some people even advocate the independence of the Wu dialect region, they even have a flag ready," she said. "Because they think with the current language policy, they'll be eliminated anyway, so they might as well go for independence."
In recent years, however, the policy is being relaxed, Zhuang said. A few language-preservation programs are being led by local governments since 2015 to document nearly extinct languages in order to better protect and preserve them.
"The popularization of Putonghua is a national policy written in the Constitution. It's important but it doesn't conflict with the preservation of dialects," Zhuang said.
In Guangzhou, Guangdong Province for example, the children all have sufficient level of Putonghua, but they still prefer to speak Cantonese in private. They also have many opportunities to learn Cantonese, because their neighbors still speak it, the metro, bus, radio, TV all have Cantonese-language shows or channels, so the children grow up speaking the dialect and will have more attachment to their hometowns and local cultures, said Zhuang.
One thing that's clear, is that there are more and more people like Hu, who want to understand their heritage. She thinks the situation is better nowadays, at least people recognize and support their cause.
"I know people who have been protecting dialects 10 years ago, at that time, many accused them of falling to 'localism,'" she said. "So for us, we are trying to take this as far as we can."
