Putonghua(Online mandarin learning) has become the core curriculum of primary and secondary schools in Hong Kong.
the scene of the award ceremony of the first “Bauhinia Culture Cup” Chinese Culture Putonghua Competition for Primary and Secondary Schools in Hong Kong.
Recently, Hong Kong’s “Belt and Road” project specialist recruitment positions are on fire.
The annual salary of this position offered by the Commerce and Economic Development Bureau of the Special Administrative Region Government is as high as 3.358 million Hong Kong dollars, but there is also a striking requirement: you must be able to speak fluent Mandarin.
Some people say that Putonghua has undergone a transformation from a bonus item to a must-have item, which shows that it is getting more and more attention in Hong Kong.
The Director of the Civil Service Bureau of the Hong Kong Special Administrative Region Government, Yang Ho Pui-yin, recently stated in the Legislative Council that it will continue to strengthen the Mandarin training of civil servants and improve the overall ability to use Mandarin.
She also introduced that after years of hard work, the proportion of Chinese used in official affairs within the government has continued to increase, and more and more civil servants directly write official documents in Chinese.
Both Chinese and English are the official languages of Hong Kong. Zheng Weiyuan, director of the Beijing Office of the Hong Kong Special Administrative Region Government, who is already a senior civil servant, recalled that before Hong Kong returned to the motherland in 1997, civil servants and government employees rarely used Chinese in the system, and everyone communicated mainly in English.
After the reunification, the first SAR government began to focus on “two languages” (that is, Chinese and English) and “trilingualism” (that is, Cantonese, Putonghua and English), and made a lot of efforts.
In the second year after Hong Kong returned to the motherland, Putonghua began to become the core curriculum of primary and secondary schools in Hong Kong, and the learning of Putonghua by the younger generation gradually became popular.
According to statistics from the Census and Statistics Department of the SAR Government, the proportion of the population in Hong Kong who can speak Mandarin was 18.1% in 1991, and will increase to 54.2% by 2021.
With the increasingly close exchanges with the mainland, the frequency of use of Chinese and Mandarin has increased significantly.
Yang He Beiyin introduced that the policy of the SAR government is to maintain a civil servant team proficient in “two languages and three languages”.
When handling official business and conveying information within the government, appropriate languages will be used according to operational needs, the nature of affairs and the recipients of the text.
The “Belt and Road” project commissioner who has received attention with a high salary is responsible for leading the Hong Kong “Belt and Road” Office and participating in the construction of the “Belt and Road”. Zheng Weiyuan served in this position from 2021 to 2022.
He introduced that this position requires contacts with different agencies in the Mainland, such as the Development and Reform Commission, the Ministry of Commerce, the State-owned Assets Supervision and Administration Commission and other relevant ministries and commissions, the Hong Kong Liaison Office of the Central Committee of the Central People’s Government, the Trade Office of the Ministry of Economic Affairs, and state-owned enterprises, etc.
and participate in activities and conferences, etc.
Therefore, Online mandarin learning skills are essential .
When Zheng Weiyuan was interviewed by reporters, he skillfully introduced various situations in Mandarin.
When he was studying at the Chinese University of Hong Kong in the 1980s, he began to learn Mandarin, and then traveled to the mainland every year, from Guangdong, Guangxi, Hainan to other provinces, autonomous regions and cities, sometimes staying for a month or two.
He communicated more face-to-face with mainland compatriots, and his Mandarin level has also improved. This has benefited him a lot on the road of being a political officer.
From the Hong Kong Economic and Trade Office in Guangdong in the early years, to the “Belt and Road” project specialist later, and now to the Hong Kong Office in Beijing, fluent Mandarin is inseparable from any position.
He said modestly that most older Hong Kong people like himself who speak Mandarin in simplified characters are “half-way monks”, so they are “congenitally deficient”.
For example, the four tones are unclear, and the speech script is difficult to read in Mandarin; the vocabulary cannot keep up, and Chinese and English are mixed when in a hurry; easy to distinguish.
He has thought of many ways to do this, one of the tricks is to listen to and watch more news broadcasts and current affairs documentaries in the Mainland, and learn to expand his vocabulary through correct narration and some subtitles.
The Civil Service Bureau of the Hong Kong SAR government has also seen similar demand.
The Civil Service Academy under the bureau continues to promote Mandarin training for civil servants and provides courses covering different levels for civil servants of the Hong Kong Special Administrative Region Government.
Available data shows that from 2017 to 2021, the Civil Service Bureau of the Special Administrative Region has held nearly 500 Mandarin training courses and lectures, with a total of about 13,000 participants.
At the same time, in order to facilitate and encourage civil servants to use Chinese more in official affairs, the Official Language Affairs Department of the Civil Service Bureau of the Special Administrative Region Government compiled the “Manual for Writing Government Documents” with examples to provide language support services including Chinese, and opened online learning resources and a telephone inquiry hotline.
deepen cognition
The ability to use Putonghua is one of the assessment items under the current performance assessment mechanism for civil servants in the HKSAR.
Online mandarin learning not only brings convenience to work and life, but also enhances learners’ knowledge and understanding of the country.
Hong Kong should grasp the opportunities brought by the construction of the Guangdong-Hong Kong-Macao Greater Bay Area and the national “14th Five-Year Plan” and actively integrate into the overall development of the country.
It is very important for all Hong Kong people, including civil servants, to learn Mandarin well.
The HKSAR Civil Service Academy will launch exchange programs with other cities in the Guangdong-Hong Kong-Macao Greater Bay Area, and discuss feasible plans for deepening exchanges with relevant mainland units, so that Hong Kong civil servants have the opportunity to spend a longer period of time in the Mainland for exchanges and in-depth experience of local urban development.
While improving the ability of civil servants to use Mandarin, actively integrate into the overall situation of national development.
Mak Ganchu, chairman of the Council of the Hong Kong Putonghua Institute, believes that if the civil service system does not pay enough attention to Putonghua, it will affect their cognition and recognition of national development and policies.
He suggested that consideration should be given to adding Mandarin qualification requirements when recruiting civil servants.
On the one hand, it can help college students continue to learn and use Mandarin well.
Yang He Beiyin, who visited the mainland, said that during this trip, she communicated with local Hong Kong students, introduced to them the recruitment of Hong Kong civil servants, and welcomed students who aspire to serve Hong Kong citizens to join the civil service after graduation.
In recent years, as more and more Hong Kong young people receive Mandarin training in schools, the ability of Hong Kong civil servants to use Mandarin when they enter the job has also been continuously improved.
Zheng Weiyuan believes that this highlights the “biliterate and trilingual” characteristics of Hong Kong under the “one country, two systems”, as well as the unique advantages of being backed by the motherland and Online mandarin learning.
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