Cantonese Pride

The Cantonese of Hong Kong are a plucky lot, and display an ethnic chauvinism rarely encountered in the rest of China. They consider themselves to be perfect exemplars of what it means to be Chinese, despite being colonized and exposed to barbarian ways for 150 years. The Cantonese dialect is also considered by Heunggongyan, as the Hong Kong Cantonese call themselves, to be the true Chinese language. This notion flabbergasts the northern Chinese, who speak Mandarin and look upon Cantonese as an uncivilized language. In fact, the Cantonese have a point, as it is argued that the language is closer to that spoken in earlier ages in China. Poetry from the Tang Dynasty (618-907) tends to rhyme better when read aloud in Cantonese rather than in Mandarin. It also keeps a fair number of classical Chinese expressions in its daily vocabulary, while Mandarin has shorn itself of many of these. It is common to meet Cantonese Chinese who claim that modern Mandarin (called Putonghua) is not truly Chinese, but an invention.