Film project aims to bring Hakka culture to celluloid

[bonsai]

Film project aims to bring Hakka culture to celluloid

At its founding ceremony yesterday, the Taiwan Sound and Image Documentary Association pledged to bring an awareness of Hakka culture to the public

Taipei Times
Sunday, March 28, 2004

By Caroline Hong

At its founding ceremony yesterday, the Taiwan Sound and Image Documentary Association pledged to bring an awareness of Hakka culture to the public.

"As the first film association devoted to Hakka affairs, we hope that through our documentaries, more people can see, hear and enter a deeper understanding of the Hakka people. We hope that they will feel themselves immersed in Hakka life when they see our work," said Peng Wu-wen, head of the association's budget committee.

The association was originally the brainchild of graduates of a documentary film-training course organized by the Council for Hakka Affairs last June. Training was conducted by Formosa Television, a local television network. At the end of the course, students from the class showcased their results in a film series held at Eslite bookstore last year called 29P: Addicted to Hakka, referring to the 29 filmmakers involved. The course inspired the formation of the Taiwan Sound and Image Documentary.

The association plans to hold another film series composed of members' productions.

The film series, The Hakka Perspective, will talk about concerns facing the Hakka people today and open discussion about our future. For example, one film focuses on half-Hakka children and the issue of their identity," Peng said.

The Hakka Perspective will run as a 26-episode program on Hakka language television channels sometime after July. Each episode will be an hour long with Hakka as its main language.

[BigLew]

They have Hakka language channels? I thought it was a dying language.

[kuilong]

Originally Posted by BigLew

They have Hakka language channels? I thought it was a dying language.

There's some serious efforts to preserve Hakka language; the Hakkas in the area keep having conventions and so on (http://www.asiawind.com/hakka/). There's also a contigent of Hakkas in Taiwan who are attempting a sort of Hakka localization modeled after the Taiwanese localization movement.

Shanghainese, on the other hand, is in serious need of some prestige or it might be in trouble in the next few decades. :-(

[SunWuKong]

Originally Posted by kuilong

Shanghainese, on the other hand, is in serious need of some prestige or it might be in trouble in the next few decades. :-(

why do you think that? it's survived for quite a long time so far, despite all the Westernisation in the past and the Mandarin-language schools in the present.

[AliBabaIncorporated]

Originally Posted by kuilong

Shanghainese, on the other hand, is in serious need of some prestige or it might be in trouble in the next few decades. :-(

Huh? Last time I was in a bookstore here, there were three times as many "Learn Shanghainese" books as Hakka and Hokkien combined. Not to mention all these "How to open a shop in Shanghai" books in the Business & Investment section.

On a side note, I am completely appalled at the quality of all "teaching materials" published for Chinese learning other Chinese dialects. They're just glorified phrasebooks in an oversized packaging. (The worst are the ones which have no audio tape and no tone marks in the romanization --- how the fuck are you supposed to know if you're pronouncing stuff correctly?)

Originally Posted by kuilong

There's also a contigent of Hakkas in Taiwan who are attempting a sort of Hakka localization modeled after the Taiwanese localization movement.

Oh wonderful, just what Hakka needed, a bunch of people writing it like this:

1951-nii ycieen, Liim Keahioong Kaosiu si eng MLT siar Taioaan bunge-zokphirn ee zokkaf. Y ee zokphirn lorng eng phofthofng ee Engbuun-phahjxiky laai tuozog, mxkuo hiah'ee ee zerngseg irnsoad-zhutparn khiok in'ui tngsii syn-panpox ee Taioaan-Serng-Zernghuo ee hengzexng-bengleng, siutioh zoftoxng; hit'ee bexngleng zoadtuix kirmcie ti Taioaan-kerng-lai zhutparn Taioaan-oe kab Jidpurn-oe ee jixmhoo zokphirn.

Courtesy of the "Taiwanese localization movement." See http://www.edutech.org.tw/A1/Tech-Taiwanese.htm, an article about "Khocky Taibuun."

Seriously, the only way a Chinese dialect survives is if speakers of other Chinese dialects want to learn it. Foreigners learning Chinese dialects are negligible. And any dialect whose native speakers insist on writing it like the above nonsense is gonna scare off and alienate a bunch of other Chinese people. Whereas, writing in characters makes it easier for speakers of other dialects to learn and assimilate the expressions and special constructions specific to your dialect, thus making it more widespread.

[experiment888]

Originally Posted by AliBabaIncorporated

Seriously, the only way a Chinese dialect survives is if speakers of other Chinese dialects want to learn it. Foreigners learning Chinese dialects are negligible. And any dialect whose native speakers insist on writing it like the above nonsense is gonna scare off and alienate a bunch of other Chinese people. Whereas, writing in characters makes it easier for speakers of other dialects to learn and assimilate the expressions and special constructions specific to your dialect, thus making it more widespread.

I guess the pin-yim (romanization) helps in pronounciation. This frees up someone else's time...

You need a teacher to teach hakka using characters...good for small numbers of students, but impractical on a large scale

[moJo]

i didn't even know what Hakka was until I saw it online. i probably saw it here, too, last year.

and pin-yin works wonders for people like me, in conjunction with characters. thats how i learned mandarin. there are just so many characters out there, it's overwhelming.

1951-nii ycieen, Liim Keahioong Kaosiu si eng MLT siar Taioaan bunge-zokphirn ee zokkaf. Y ee zokphirn lorng eng phofthofng ee Engbuun-phahjxiky laai tuozog, mxkuo hiah'ee ee zerngseg irnsoad-zhutparn khiok in'ui tngsii syn-panpox ee Taioaan-Serng-Zernghuo ee hengzexng-bengleng, siutioh zoftoxng; hit'ee bexngleng zoadtuix kirmcie ti Taioaan-kerng-lai zhutparn Taioaan-oe kab Jidpurn-oe ee jixmhoo zokphirn.

okay, that is crazy. at least with pinyin, you have the tones to guide you.

[hooligan]

Originally Posted by moJo

i didn't even know what Hakka was until I saw it online. i probably saw it here, too, last year.

and pin-yin works wonders for people like me, in conjunction with characters. thats how i learned mandarin. there are just so many characters out there, it's overwhelming.

okay, that is crazy. at least with pinyin, you have the tones to guide you.

i only learned about the hakka about 3 years ago, when i went to taiwan and i had a hakka TA for one of my asian am classes. hey jo, you didn't know who old master Q was, doesn't surprise me.

[moJo]

Originally Posted by hooligan

hey jo, you didn't know who old master Q was, doesn't surprise me.

hah, that's mean...well, quiz me on other chinese stuff, then. i gotta pass the test. c'mon!

(kidding, kidding )

[SunWuKong]

Originally Posted by AliBabaIncorporated

Seriously, the only way a Chinese dialect survives is if speakers of other Chinese dialects want to learn it.

well there's always the production of media in that dialect... like Cantonese.

why would you think it would be necessary for speakers of other dialects to want to learn in order for the dialect to survive? actually i'm surprised that people in different rural areas in Guangdong are still speaking all the different variants of Cantonese to each other.

Originally Posted by experiment888

You need a teacher to teach hakka using characters...good for small numbers of students, but impractical on a large scale

i would agree with this if not for the advent of... mass communication.
all they really need are language tapes that teach from Mandarin to Hakka, if they want to teach the average Chinese person how to speak it.

Originally Posted by moJo

i didn't even know what Hakka was until I saw it online. i probably saw it here, too, last year.

there are four major branches of Chinese dialects.
Mandarin, Cantonese, Hakka, and Minnan.

[Napoleon Chynamite]

Originally Posted by moJo

hah, that's mean...well, quiz me on other chinese stuff, then. i gotta pass the test. c'mon!

(kidding, kidding )

WHITEWASHED! WHITE GIRL! BOO

[moJo]

Originally Posted by SunWuKong

there are four major branches of Chinese dialects.
Mandarin, Cantonese, Hakka, and Minnan.

that's the first time i've heard of "Minnan".

what about Fukienese?

Originally Posted by Gumby

WHITEWASHED! WHITE GIRL! BOO

*snort* look who's talkin'!!

[kuilong]

Originally Posted by SunWuKong

why do you think that? it's survived for quite a long time so far, despite all the Westernisation in the past and the Mandarin-language schools in the present.

It's only in relatively recent times though that Mandarin has gained the influence it has (and Westernization doesn't count -- there was never a time when the majority of Shanghainese spoke English or other Western languages). Cornish was also spoken for centuries, but it virtually disappeared in the 18th century. Minority languages which lack prestige have a tendency of doing that, without strong revival efforts (like with Basque) which Shanghainese completely lacks. You'll never find Shanghainese pop or other modern music, and on radio shows people who switch into Shanghainese are told to speak Mandarin instead. There's very few monolingual Shanghainese speakers that I know of, as there are with Taiwanese and by the truckload with Cantonese. Furthermore, I know very few Chinese people who learn Shanghainese, besides out of necessity.

Originally Posted by AliBabaIncorporated

Huh? Last time I was in a bookstore here, there were three times as many "Learn Shanghainese" books as Hakka and Hokkien combined. Not to mention all these "How to open a shop in Shanghai" books in the Business & Investment section.

As you said yourself, foreigners learning Shanghainese isn't really significant... but I'm surprised. So far, the only materials for learning Shanghainese I've found are Chinese-language. I've only heard of maybe one or two English-language Shanghainese books, and I haven't actually seen them.

Originally Posted by MoJo

that's the first time i've heard of "Minnan".

what about Fukienese?

Fujian is part of the Minnan family.

Originally Posted by hooligan

i only learned about the hakka about 3 years ago, when i went to taiwan and i had a hakka TA for one of my asian am classes. hey jo, you didn't know who old master Q was, doesn't surprise me.

I think 15% of Taiwanese are Hakka, as well as lots of famous people from all over the world: Lee Kwan-Yew, Lee Teng-hui, Deng Xiaoping, the Soong sisters and Adrienne Clarkson (Governor-General of Canada).

[SunWuKong]

Originally Posted by kuilong

Minority languages which lack prestige have a tendency of doing that, without strong revival efforts (like with Basque) which Shanghainese completely lacks. You'll never find Shanghainese pop or other modern music, and on radio shows people who switch into Shanghainese are told to speak Mandarin instead. There's very few monolingual Shanghainese speakers that I know of, as there are with Taiwanese and by the truckload with Cantonese. Furthermore, I know very few Chinese people who learn Shanghainese, besides out of necessity.

i'm not sure i agree with you completely. i've never been to Shanghai, but i hear that a lot of Shanghainese people communicate with Shanghainese because that's the home language. so it's not exactly out of simple necessity, unless you define as "necessity" the parents teaching their children the language they speak.

also, to raise a parallel with other languages/dialects that doesn't have "strong revival efforts", there are plenty of Cantonese variants in Guangdong (like Teochew, Toisan, etc etc) and some of them aren't exactly understandable by speakers of "proper" Guangzhou Cantonese, or by each other, for that matter. i'm certain there's no or next to no amount of media produced in their dialects, because to the best of my knowledge, in Guangdong you've basically either got the Mandarin media from mainland, or the Cantonese proper media from HK. yet plenty of people still speak these different variants of Cantonese. when communicating with each other, they speak their own dialects and only switch to Cantonese proper or Mandarin when someone enters the conversation and he doesn't understand the dialect.

and like Shanghainese, these dialects are still around. i can understanding the reasoning behind thinking that they'd disappear because of the nationalisation/centralisation of Mandarin and because there's no media produced in these dialects. but when exactly will this happen? to the best of my knowledge no Chinese dialect, no matter how small the population is that speaks it, has disappeared so far since the nationalisation of Mandarin.

[kuilong]

Originally Posted by SunWuKong

i'm not sure i agree with you completely. i've never been to Shanghai, but i hear that a lot of Shanghainese people communicate with Shanghainese because that's the home language. so it's not exactly out of simple necessity, unless you define as "necessity" the parents teaching their children the language they speak.

The point is that there are very few monolingually Shanghainese speakers. That has historically led to language extinction.

Originally Posted by SunWuKong

also, to raise a parallel with other languages/dialects that doesn't have "strong revival efforts", there are plenty of Cantonese variants in Guangdong (like Teochew, Toisan, etc etc) and some of them aren't exactly understandable by speakers of "proper" Guangzhou Cantonese, or by each other, for that matter. i'm certain there's no or next to no amount of media produced in their dialects, because to the best of my knowledge, in Guangdong you've basically either got the Mandarin media from mainland, or the Cantonese proper media from HK. yet plenty of people still speak these different variants of Cantonese. when communicating with each other, they speak their own dialects and only switch to Cantonese proper or Mandarin when someone enters the conversation and he doesn't understand the dialect.

and like Shanghainese, these dialects are still around. i can understanding the reasoning behind thinking that they'd disappear because of the nationalisation/centralisation of Mandarin and because there's no media produced in these dialects. but when exactly will this happen? to the best of my knowledge no Chinese dialect, no matter how small the population is that speaks it, has disappeared so far since the nationalisation of Mandarin.

Mandarin has only been really dominant since the founding of the PRC (and ROC on Taiwan), and the consequent establishment of widespread Mandarin education (The 正音書院 estabished during the Qing dynasty don't count). The amount of time taken for extinction varies (certainly more than 60 years! at least, for a language as widely spoken as Shanghainese). However, Michael Krauss of the University of Alaska famously estimated that 90% of the world's languages today would be extinct within a hundred years, and I'm pretty sure that Shanghainese will be one of them.

While I can't think of examples (probably precisely because the so-called "dialects" lacked prestige) I'm sure there are several dialects that have disappeared during Chinese history. If there weren't any that would be simply amazing, since language extinction is a lot more common than most people think (IIRC, fully half of the world's languages today are in danger of dying out in a generation) and Chinese languages don't seem to have any magical properties of survival.