I heard about a guy, a single father, who blogs about his life and makes more money than he ever made in any of his jobs in his previous life. He says he's astounded that, by writing about his life as a single dad, he would be paid as much as he gets. I imagine he is more consistent about his blogging than I am... I imagine that if he blogged the way I do, he would be currently unemployed and on the dole.

For anyone who still bothers to check this blog for the infrequent updates, you recall (amongst the passings of Ted Kennedy and Michael Jackson and whatever other remarkable events in world history that I have missed because I have been apartment hunting and trying--and failing--to register for classes) that I wanted to write about the differences between Hong Kong and Taiwan. I thought I would start with the most blatantly obvious one: the language.

I spent one month learning the official spoken language of the Republic of China/Taiwan, the People's Republic of China, and one of four state languages in Singapore. Then I wanted to come to Hong Kong. Ooops. There are vast differences between Mandarin, the "official language", and Cantonese, the dialect spoken in Hong Kong as well as some other places--I think Guangzhou province and Malaysia. The two dialects are usually unintelligible to other Chinese language speakers, but for outsiders, the difference is overwhelming.

The reason is because all Chinese dialects depend on tones to convey, not just meaning, but vocabulary. There is a HUGE difference between the word "ma?" which means "what" or "huh" and "Ma!" which means someone is getting yelled at. It's important to hear and identify pitch dynamics made by the speaker. And this is where the dialects become tricky. There are roughly four ways to say "Ma" in Mandarin, but Cantonese has twice as many tones; so to me, it's the difference between a four piece band and a nine piece orchestra—much more difficult to pick out the individual parts.

But I find that I'm still able to communicate in this nine-tone land. Unlike Taiwan, Hong Kong has English as one of the two official languages (although perhaps for not much longer; some believe that era has passed). Public transportation, signs and information is all in English. Serviceworkers, scholars and young people generally all speak good basic English. So I can get by. Luckily, my summer term learning Mandarin can be put to use too. Many people living in Hong Kong are mainlanders who speak the national language. Also, for those Hong Kong Chinese who learned a second language, Mandarin is much easier to learn than English. With what I learned this summer, I can generally order food and complain about the weather to anyone who cares to listen. Chinese of both Taiwan and Hong Kong are usually quite pleased to find a westerner who cares enough to learn their language, but are not too patient to teach you or wait for you to figure out what you're trying to say yourself, so they generally either speak in English or gesture that it's time for you to be on your way. At least my classes will be taught in English.

So why did you spend a month learning a language you can't even use at study abroad, you ask? To that I say, shuddup. Just so you know, Mandarin is the most spoken first language in the world (according to my newcomers' briefing at the college). Anyways, I didn't just learn the spoken language...I also learned maybe 100 or so characters...roughly 3 percent of what I need to know to be what's considered literate. Whatever, it's good for one month of study. So shuddup.

Knowing some of the written language has actually helped me a lot in ordering food. I can read enough of a menu to know the difference between rice gruel and rice noodles. To me, a registered gourmand (read P.I.G.--hog) this bears significant and pragmatic applications to my daily life. I could talk extensively about the menu, but I'll leave that for another day.