It’s the little things in life that change that portend bigger changes ahead.
During my many visits to Hong Kong, the locals told me that HK is truly dead when you begin to hear putonghwa on the MTR announcements.
Well, according to the unlinkable South China Morning Post, it’s happened.
“The MTR Corporation is going after the mainland tourist dollar by promoting its train services and malls at the border and at mainland visa counters. And this month it will make its train and platform announcements trilingual, rather than using just English and Cantonese.”
The communist government has tried to crush Cantonese dialect (and pretty much everything else) in favor of putonghua, with the exception of Shanghainese because much of the communist leadership hails from there.
Historically, it’s easier for a dictatorship to keep control when everyone is forced to speak the same language (think Yugo-Slavia during Tito and then after). I hope, for Hong Kong’s sake, that this small change in everyday life is not part of something darker in future.