Younger Generation

Profile- First interviewee

Younger Generation

Pauline

Pauline is the daughter of Lee, our parental generation interviewee. She is an arts student at The University of Hong Kong. Despite the fact that she was born and raised in Hong Kong, she has a Chiu Chow background because her mother is a Chiuchowese. Her first language learnt is Cantonese and Cantonese is also her most frequent language use.

Domain Analysis

As represented in the domain analysis, Chiuchownese is not chosen in each of the specified domains. She was asked if there were any occasions she will use Chiuchownese. These were her replies. ‘The only context I use Chiuchownese is when I try to resemble the Chiuchownese words spoken by my mother during her conversation with my grandmother’ and ‘I only know certain Chiuchownese words'.

identity Acceptance

Hong Kong Identity is the only identity Pauline accepts. There are two reasons for her not to accept Chiu Chow identity. First, she fails to hold a fluent conversation with another person in Chiuchownese. Second, she has little recognition about Chiu Chow history and the corresponding cultures and traditions. She even said ‘Currently, if I was forced to accept myself as a Chiuchowese, the only account for it is of biological relationship. Still, there are lots of uncertainties in the future’. She also revealed ‘My strong identity towards being a Hongkonger is perhaps a reason for why I do not have any interest in learning Chiuchownese’.

The influence of language acquisition on identity acceptance is further investigated. A hypothesized scenario was proposed. If there existed a formal education channel of learning Chiuchownese, Pauline would take the courses so that she could avoid any inconvenience caused when communicating with her mother and grandmother. Learning Chiuchownese, she was more likely to accept her Chiu Chow identity and the acceptance level would increase. However, because Chiuchownese is not a majority language in Hong Kong, she was not optimistic about having such education channel in the foreseeable future. And in terms of minority languages, there were lots of different language varieties. It was hard to account for why only Chiuchownese was chosen to put resources in and it would be too costly to include each minority language in education curriculum.

In spite of having Chiu Chow background, Pauline does not accept the Chiu Chow Identity.

Chiuchownese appears nowhere in Pauline's language choice.

Profile- Second interviewee

Judith

Judith is a locally born and raised female in Hong Kong. She is currently working as a marketing assistant in the Cheer Bell Gallery. She lives with her parents and her father who is also born in Hong Kong comes from a traditional Chiuchow family. Hence, Judith has Chiu Chow background.

The first language Judith learnt is Cantonese and Cantonese is also her most commonly used language. Apart from Cantonese, she also speaks English and knows a little about Japanese.

Domain Analysis

Chiuchownese appears nowhere in Judith's language choice.

Chiuchownese is not chosen in any of the specified domains. Judith gave explanations for this. It was ‘I only have two vocabularies in Chiuchownese so I do not know Chiuchownese at all’.

Identity

Chiu Chow Identity

Hong Kong Identity

Chinese Identity

Ratings

Rating Criteria

From 1 to 10, with 1 as the least important and 10 as the most important

identity Acceptance

Talking about her identity, Judith did not hesitate to accept herself as a HongKongnese and believed that she was also a Chinese. She replied that place of birth and year of residence were the two factors that made her regard herself as HongKongnese. By reminding her about an alternative identity like being a Chiuchowese, then she said she was. She ranked the importance of different identities to her from 1 to 10 of which 10 is most important. Hongkongnese, Chinese and Chiuchowese were given 9, 6 and 4 respectively. She commented that the Chiuchowese identity was less important because she only had fair knowledge about the traditions, rituals and cultures of Chiu Chow. She dislikes some kinds of mindset within the Chiuchowese such as female is inferior to male but the fact that she still regards herself chiuchowese is by her biological relationship. In response to the question of whether culture is more prominent than language in attaching oneself to certain identity, she rephrased it into that language is part of the culture. A hypothesized scenario was then created. When Judith was supposed to know the language Chiuchownese and she chose to use Chiuchownese when communicating with others, she would then prefer her identity of Chiuchowese to HongKongese.