The Language Of Hong Kong

It is important to make a distinction between a ‘national language’ and an ‘official language’ before discussing any further. National language is “a language associated with a particular country where it is recognised as a symbol of national identity” (Joan Swann, 2004) whereas an official language can be defined as “a language which is used for political, legal and administrative communications within a given political territory.” (Joan Swann, 2004) This essay will focus on national languages and their importance across the globe from small communities to national level without overruling the importance of having official language(s) helping to run governments.

In the examining and writing my analysis of the article Mother Tongue by Amy Tan, I hope to appeal to an audience that wishes to expand their knowledge of the cultural use of various languages and their social impacts. In this case, the language would be English and the culture would be that of Asian-Americans. I would think that this work, and the analysis of, would primarily be of interest to those in academic or research fields of sociology and language. I would hope the reader of my analysis would be interested in gaining insight into how using a “broken” English system heavily influences one’s communication and feeling towards those outside of your culture. The analysis would benefit the reader by

While The boxer rebellions is still ongoing, the British were selling opium, a poisonous drug made from poppy plants, to the chinese people. The British colonies refused to stop importing opium and continued selling opium to injure the chinese. In document 1 The Opium War, The chinese suffered shameful defeat and were forced to sign the Treaty of Nanjing, which gave Britain the island of Hong Kong and free from the chinese laws at the chinese ports. China’s humiliated lost made them resist against the British rule, eventually leading to the Opium Wars. Although they were manipulated by the British, they still resisted to prove their loyalty and their love for their country. This indicates that the chinese people show Nationalism by portraying the pride they have for their country. The chinese also shows ideology by showing loyalty to their sacredness and ancient culture. In conclusion, imperialism altered China to a country that has nationalism and pride for their

policies. Over the years, Hong Kong has been considered the “door to China”, meaning that

This all altered in 2003. Hong Kong was punched by Severe Acute Respiratory Syndrome (SARS) which travelled over from southern China.

Hong Kong and Taiwan have claimed independence from mainland China, but political concerns are arising. Since the ruling class controls the state power, China sought its own interest and define its interest as the interest of the nation-state. Liberals would argue that Tibet, Hong Kong, and Taiwan should be respected and allow them to self-govern. Even though, China wants to gain all forms of power with trying to get ahold of these countries, it will be more of a benefit to let them self-govern and try to work together. Chinese scholars began to engage the more orthodox intellectuals in the debate over china’s interest in the 1990s. Yet, according to Qin, he would argue that China was trying to establish somewhat of a liberalism concept. Qin could have this approach since China’s most important national interest was economic development and the most cost efficient way to realize that was from China to take under their power Tibet, Hong Kong, and

The Opium War was a war fought by two countries Great Britain and china in 1839. The war was fought over the drug opium which was used by the Chinese for hundreds of year to relieve pain. opium is a habit forming narcotic made from the poppy plant. In the late 1700’s the British was smuggling the drug into China for non-medical use. The navies of the two countries mostly fought the battles of the opium war at sea. Within three years the Chinese’s old ships were simply no matches for the brand new British ships. In 1843 the Chinese and the British signed the treaty of Nanjing. This treaty gave the British the island of Hong Kong. In 1844 the United States of America and other countries gained extraterritorial rights. Which this

The article research topic was a study that analyzed the phonological awareness, naming skill, and visual skill of Hong Kong and United State children, and if there were any similarities on these influences and English word recognition. The hypothesis was that age was linked to the speed of the performance in phonological awareness, naming skill, and visual learning all three models influenced reading skills. The study was conducted on 190 Hong Kong kindergarten children ages 3-6 years and 128 United State kindergarteners and first grade children. Both Hong Kong and American children were given exams by psychology students; the exams were to measure their reading, phonological awareness, naming, and visual-spatial skills. The results were that

Although Hong Kong has officially been transferred over from Chinese rule to British rule and back again, there still resides many western influences on this former colony after decolonization.

With connection to the increase in migration from China, the importance of Chinese languages in Australia is growing as well. Mandarin which is spoken by 1.6% of the population, about 336,410 people, at home has now taken place of Italian as the most important language other than English in Australia (Inglis 2012). Christine Inglis (2012) found from the perspective of Sydney’s

Hong Kong, itself is a cosmopolitan metropolis where old tradition blends perfectly with Western culture and post-modern trends. Ethnic Chinese make up the bulk of its population, but there is also a sizeable presence of expatriates and people of different ethnicity, all enjoying the freedoms and prosperity

Chapter one covers the earlier colonial timeframe up until approximately 1867 when Hong Kong and Shanghai bank was founded. It seems that Hong Kong was not really recognized for much of anything until the early 1800’s when it was realized to be an acceptable base to process trade through China. It is interesting, and somewhat terrible, to see the amount of conflict in such a short time period. Starting with the First Opium War in 1839, the Chinese suffered through several wars, unfair treaties, piracy, and British tyranny, ending with Hong Kong becoming a center for transnational Chinese trade.

Britain's entire purpose for their acquisition of Hong Kong was trade (Chiu 25). While China had many important ports as a part of their country, few would ever reach the heights that Hong Kong did under the British. In the mid-1840’s, a few short years after Hong Kong was first ceded to the British, it was already responsible for handling 21% of all of China’s exports, and then in the next 30 years, that number would rise to 37% (Chiu 24). The British created docks across the island, allowing companies from all over the world, and especially neighboring countries, to trade there, and by having free trade and little taxes, allowed for large amounts of trading to occur. While the Chinese were resentful for having given up Hong Kong, they had never truly given it the ability to rise to its true potential as the British did.

This convention granted the island of Hong Kong to Great Britain (along with the New Territories and 235 islands) for a further 99 years from July 1, 1898."

China has “One country, Two system” policy, which means that there is only one china, but special administrative regions such as Hong Kong and Macau can retain their own capitalist economics and political systems. There is no denying that “one country, two system” policy is correct, and has strong vitality, and promote the economy. However, it leads to the alienation of people. Back to the 19 century, Hong Kong was ceded to the United Kingdom, and was occupied for almost one hundred and fifty years. As the result of the Hong Kong was occupied by the United Kingdom for a long time, the Hong Kong people and the Chinese mainlander has different thoughts and views and it leads conflicts.