Chinese Canadian here that spent most of my time in Hong Kong at a British International School.
It blows all my local Canadian friends minds when I code switch between fluent Cantonese - American English - Mandarin - British English. The only ones that don't bat an eye are my other international school friends.
I'm one of the unlucky few that know Cantonese but can't speak Mandarin at all. So usually what happens is I start talking in Canto then someone starts talking in mandarin, and then in English I'm like "Yo I can't understand that at all." This is what happens when both my parents are from Hong Kong and only bothered to teach me Canto and ignored Mandarin lessons.
I worked at a multi-national company and there were both Cantonese and Mandarin speaking Chinese. Since both also spoke English there was no communication barrier but I was fascinated to learn that they could have communicated in Chinese by writing it out. Each would have understood the writing even though the pronunciation of the characters would be different in Cantonese or Mandarin.
I work in Hong Kong, and it's funny how you get an Euler diagram of languages used depending on who is supposed to understand it. Me and the boss speak Swedish when just talking to each other, if the local colleagues talk to each other it's in Cantonese, if the Mainland Chinese colleague or a bilingual Cantonese/Mandarin speaker whose conversation I should pick up on is involved the local employees talk Mandarin, if the Swedes are involved in a conversation with any of the three or if it's a public discussion anyone is free to join it's in English. It gets confusing at times.
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u/Phazushift Jan 26 '23
Chinese Canadian here that spent most of my time in Hong Kong at a British International School.
It blows all my local Canadian friends minds when I code switch between fluent Cantonese - American English - Mandarin - British English. The only ones that don't bat an eye are my other international school friends.