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政政系老師李詠怡回應<哭中大>

Dear Students

I am writing this letter in English solely because I can type and
write much faster in English than Chinese, and with the pressure of work I
do not have time to translate this into Chinese. I also feel that
writing in English will allow my ideas to reach our non-Chinese reading
students and colleagues, thus fostering a more inclusive dialogue. I hope
the English will not constitute an intellectual or psychological barrier
between us while I try to get my message across.

Recently, I have been reading a lot of comments by students on the
issue of language of instruction, including of course the letter written
by the Students’ Union. I am not here to defend the policy of the
university, and in fact I believe there is much room for improvement
regarding the policy formulation of “internationalizing the student mix” and
the consultative process. The purpose of this letter is, however, to
offer my response to the major arguments advanced in your comments.

The argument against the use of more English as the teaching language
has so far been framed in terms of four themes: 1) nationalism and
decolonization; 2) the mission of The Chinese University of Hong Kong; 3)
effective learning, which requires the need to be educated in one’s
mother tongue; 4) cultural rights and identity. I would like to explore
whether these four themes should lead us to the conclusion that Cantonese
should be used exclusively or predominantly as our language of
instruction.

Nationalism and decolonization – Many of you argue that English is
simply a language of the former colonizer that was imposed on us.
Moreover, a relationship of domination and subordination between the colonizer
and the colonized was established through culturally privileging
English and belittling Chinese. Decolonization requires us to rediscover our
Chinese roots, and thus Chinese should now replace English as the
dominant language in all levels of communication. This argument should have
led us to reflect on the fact that the dominance of Cantonese in Hong
Kong, as much as the dominance of English, is the result of colonialism.
British colonialism have led to the negligence of Putunghua education
and the raising of several generations of HK Chinese that are poor
speakers of Putunghua, thus rendering them unable to communicate with the
majority of the Chinese population and their fellow Chinese citizens. The
recognition of this historical shame should have obligated us to
greatly expand the use Putunghua instead of Cantonese as the medium of
instruction in CUHK and all levels of schooling.

At the same time, we should be critically aware of the fact that
Cantonese is not even the indigenous language of Hong Kong, and that the
dominance of Cantonese is the outcome of a historical process of hegemony
and homogenization that is arguably no less violent than British
colonialism. Just think of all the new migrants who even today are regarded
as less “Hong Kong” and discriminated against by the majority of HK
Chinese because they cannot speak accentless Cantonese. The original
inhabitants of HK were the Tankas and the Hakkas, who each spoke their own
dialect. The majority of the population here are migrants or their
offsprings and descendants. Although Cantonese speaking people have
constituted the majority of them, there have always been a significant number
of migrants from various places in China, whose mother tongues are not
Cantonese. In fact, as recently as the 1950s, Hong Kong was a
multiethnic society consisting of multiple linguistic communities, such as
Shanghaiese, Chiuchauese, Fujianese, Toisanese, Shantungese, Hunanese,
Ningpoese, Hakkas, Tankas, and many more. On top of that, there are
non-Chinese ethnic groups who have lived in Hong Kong for generations, and
whose ancestors came from Britain, Portugal, Russia, Central Asia, India,
Southeast Asia, among other places. If the logic of decolonization means
a total rejection of what was culturally imposed on us, we should have
rediscovered either our Chineseness by fully adopting Putunghua as the
official spoken language, or our multicultural roots by giving due
regard to the rights and heritages of all linguistic communities. Either
way, the hegemony of Cantonese should be questioned and de-legitimized.

The mission of CUHK -- It has long been the mission of this university
to promote bilingualism (meaning Chinese and English) and biculturalism
(especially bridging the Chinese and the Western culture). What the
founders of the three colleges (that originally constituted CUHK) had in
mind was definitely not promoting a Hong Kong-Cantonese culture (which
did not even exist in the 1950s when the colleges were founded), but the
national Chinese culture. Ideally, to fulfill the mission of
bilingualism and biculturalism, Puotunghua and English should be the major
language of instruction of CUHK, and Cantonese should not have a strong
presence. Many of you have claimed that CUHK has always upheld teaching in
mother tongue. This could be true to the extent that the University has
supported the use of mother tongue in foundational education. But I am
not aware that CUHK has a policy of teaching in mother tongue, as there
has never been a recruitment policy that requires all teaching staff be
fluent in Cantonese.

Effective learning -- The third argument contends that mother tongue
is always the most effective way of learning, and the use of any other
second language will compromise the purpose of education. This argument
on the right to be educated in one’s mother tongue is somewhat at odds
with the first two arguments which, according to my analysis, would
have required that Cantonese not be used as the primary teaching language
but be put back to its place as a dialect. Interestingly, given this
assertion, the student union in their open letter felt that it was
perfectly legitimate to demand Mainland Chinese students to study in
Cantonese which is often their second, third or even fourth language (after
their own local dialect and English). While upholding the sanctity of
learning in one’s mother tongue, they also conceded that they fully
understood the importance of English but felt that its use should only be
confined to “reading materials”.

If the use of Cantonese were the sole factor constituting “effective
learning”, it would require that the teaching staff of our entire
university be Cantonese-speaking people only. It would require that CUHK
stop admitting students whose mother tongue is not Cantonese. It would
require that the university stop running all international exchange
programs, especially not to send our students to foreign universities
because there is no way they can learn “effectively” in a non-Cantonese
environment. It would even mean that we stop inviting distinguished
international visitors to come in and give public lectures because, after
all, how effectively can students learn from their English (or Puotunghua)
presentations anyway?

Obviously, if we turn our university into a Cantonese-only campus, it
will seriously impoverish the academic environment and lower the
quality of education, and will not be conducive to “effective learning”.
Conversely, if we admit that the use of English is important if not
inevitable, then “effective learning” must be understood as a
multidimensional concept. I believe there are multiple factors that contribute to
“effective learning” in the context of our university. For one thing,
the teaching staff of CUHK have long been an internationalized group,
and this has directly contributed to the quality of education here.
There is no evidence to show that Cantonese speaking teachers are always
more effective than their non-Cantonese speaking counterparts. Some of
the recipients of the best teaching awards have been English speaking
teachers. Many non-local teachers have performed extremely well in
teaching evaluations. More importantly, the use of English has allowed both
the teachers and students of CUHK to have direct linkage with the centers
of knowledge production that predominantly reside in the
English-speaking world. Taking Political Science as an example, even China Studies
today is a heavily English-dominated field of studies. The best centers
of China Studies are physically located in the West. The major
international journals and writings on Chinese politics are published in
English, not Chinese. Major international conferences are conducted in
English. In short, the use of English is pertinent to maintaining the quality
of education of this university. Time and expertise do not allow me to
comment on the situation of all those monolingual countries such as
France, Germany and Japan that are teaching exclusively in their own
mother tongue. (I do know that at least France and Germany are opening in
recent years and some of their universities are offering programs and
courses in English in order to attract international students.) In any
event, I do not think Hong Kong’s situation is comparable to theirs, and
I do not see how our quality of education will not be seriously
compromised if we insist on teaching exclusively or predominantly in
Cantonese.

Thus none of the three arguments, naming, nationalism and
decolonization, the mission of the university, and effective learning, makes a
sufficient case for using Cantonese exclusively or predominantly in CUHK.
Instead, they all seem to point to the need for students to master
multiple languages. Even without the issue of “internationalizing” our
student mix, I doubt that we have a strong case to uphold Cantonese as the
major medium of learning.

Cultural rights and identity -- In many of your comments, the argument
has been advanced that the history of western colonialism and the
current trend of globalization have brought about the hegemony of the
English-speaking world and their cultures, and have threatened the survival
of other languages and cultures. English has certainly become the de
facto supranational language, not only in the academic community but also
in many areas of social and cultural exchanges. We certainly need to be
highly vigilant of any unhealthy trend toward global monolingualism. On
the other hand, the way to combat this trend is not to withdraw
ourselves from participating in the center of knowledge production or other
international exchanges. For one thing, the participation of non-Western
people in the academic discourse of the English-speaking world has
actually helped subvert the hegemony of western-centered scholarship. The
scholarships of cultural studies and postcolonial studies are examples
of such “subversive” knowledge brought about by English-speaking
intellectuals such as Edward Said and Gayatri Spivak who are of Third World
origins. As far as Chinese people are concerned, actively participating
in international activities and promoting the development of Chinese
culture are not mutually exclusive. In fact, active learning from other
cultures will serve as a major source of innovation to our Chinese
culture, and active interaction between Chinese and other cultures will
augment the impact and contribution of Chinese culture to the rest of the
world. In fact, quite many scholars have also pointed out that in the
amidst of globalization and the spread of English as a global language,
what we are witnessing is convergence not toward global monolingualism
but rather multilingualism in which people will be expected to master a
few languages. As the Students’ Union has mentioned in its open
letter, more and more international students are interested in coming to
this part of the world to learn Chinese, and this by itself is already an
indication of the multilingual trend. But then why should students of
CUHK allow themselves to lag behind this multilingual trend by insisting
on learning in Cantonese exclusively?

This brings us to the issue of Hong Kong’s cultural identity and how
it can contribute to China’s development. Many of you have insisted
that the predominance of Cantonese is crucial to the preservation of our
cultural identity. I beg to disagree. Aside from what I have already
pointed out as the need to rediscover the multilingual roots of Hong
Kong, we should also recognize that English has a central place in our
economic, cultural, social and political spheres. I do not wish to deny
that such strong presence of English is a legacy of our colonial past. On
the other hand, I would question whether it is in the best interest of
Hong Kong or China as a whole to dismantle such infrastructural
characteristics of Hong Kong. For one thing, our common law system which has
significantly contributed to the rule of law and the protection of our
way of life is entirely based on English. What we think of as the
“indigenous” cultural traits of Hong Kong are mostly “foreign” in
origin. They are actually the product of the fusion of the cultures of the
migrant population and the foreign cultures that we have actively
imported over the course of a hundred and sixty years. In this sense, Hong
Kong culture, as many cosmopolitan migrant culture, is a fusion culture.
The very possibility of such fusion culture is the openness of this
society to international influence -- and this is what makes us unique and
distinct from the rest of China. Those who argue for Cantonese as the
foundation of our indigenous culture are merely asking Hong Kong to turn
inward. Such closing of the Hong Kong mind will only suffocate the
continuous rejuvenation of our indigenous culture and sow the seeds of our
own demise. In the past century, the characteristic of Hong Kong as an
open society situated at the margins of the East and the West have
contributed significantly to China’s development. Postcolonial Hong Kong
should continue to play such “linkage” role if we wish to contribute
to the development of China and the Chinese culture in the 21st century.

I do not claim to have answers to all the questions regarding the
debate on the language of instruction, but I do hope that my views on these
issues will offer some insights for you to rethink the issues of the
mission of CUHK and our own cultural identity. I welcome your feedbacks
to my comments.

With Best Regards,
Eliza W.Y. Lee, Associate Professor Department of
Government and Public Administration

[email protected]