2ND INTERVIEW -
Wan Chai Swatow Baptist Church
Interview with Ms Wong
Ms. Wong’s profile
Ms. Wong is a staff at the Wan Chai Swatow Baptist Church. She was born and raised in Hong Kong and has no Chiu Chow Background. She is a native speaker of Cantonese and has never learnt Chiuchownese before. We interviewed her about the events organised by the church, their target participants and the medium of communication. We intend to investigate the influence of Chiuchownese language and culture to the church and the participants.
Introduction of the organisation
Wan Chai Swatow Baptist Church was officially established in 1994 for sermon and to gather people with the same religion. It is believed to be opened by a group of Swatowese. Majors activities organised include sunday school, God worshiping and evangelisation. Currently, there are around 15 Swatow Baptist Churches located in various districts of Hong Kong. The Swatow churches show the significant of Chiu Chow community to Hong Kong in the past decades.
Medium of Communication
Although it is a Swatow church, Chiuchownese or Swatowese are not used in communication at the church. Cantonese is the only medium used in all events. Indeed, there are Mandarin and English Baptist Churches in Hong Kong and Mandarin and English are used in those churches. However, it is not the case for Swatow churches. Ms. Wong explained that nearly all participants of the church do not speak Chiuchownese or Swatowese and have little connection with the culture. She mentioned that the only use of Chiuchownese within the church is the nicknames of the older people. Some elderly still use Chiuchownese nicknames so she can pick up very few Chiuchownese words. This is the only contact she has with Chiuchownese. Hence, Chiuchownese language imposes very limited influence to the church.
Target Participants
The church targets on people with the same religion who speak Cantonese, regardless of their cultural background. Although some elderly are from Chiu Chow, they have integrated into local life and hence, they are not aware of their Chiu Chow background. According to Ms. Wong, participants gather together because of their religion rather than their cultural background.
We can see that both Chiuchownese language and culture impose very limited influence to the church. Even though some of them have Chiu Chow background and can speak Chiuchownese, their main use of language have shifted to Cantonese. For the older generation, many of them have lost the repertoire of Chiuchownese through decades of living in Hong Kong. The use of Chiuchownese is rare. For the younger generation, many of them are not aware of their Chiu Chow background. As Chiuchownese is not used in daily occasions (e.g. family, church, school), they lack the environment to acquire and incentive to learn Chiuchownese. A vicious cycle is resulted:
our observation
Details of events organised
Fewer people speak the language
Diminishing use of the language
Decline in proficiency
Lack environment for language acquisition