The Language Issue

Before arriving in Hong Kong, multiple people, including McCombs Study Abroad Office, assured me that everyone speaks English even though the local language is Cantonese. Hong Kong was an English colony till 1997, so that seemed very reasonable. We quickly learned that not everyone speaks English here. Most people do speak enough English that they can communicate directions to us. 

My first language challenge occurred when we arrived on campus. When Kelsey and I got to my dorm, we ran into Matt, another student from UT. With his knowledge of Mandarin, he was able to better communicate with the people at the front desk. When I went down to turn in my forms, there was quite a bit of confusion as to what I was supposed to do and where to wait.

Most of the cab drivers don't speak English, so that has created some problems. When we leave campus, we can generally pull up the location on a map and show the driver. Last Wednesday, we were trying to get back to campus and eventually communicated it with the driver. When we got into the cab, he taught us the most important phrase we can learn in Cantonese, fo die, the name of the school in Cantonese. Now, we never have any problems getting back. 

Oliver, Kelsey, and I are taking a class about modern Hong Kong government and politics. The first day of school, we were sitting in this class, our first class in Hong Kong. The professor decided to be the only one that teaches that course not completely in English. Multiple times, he decided to speak in Cantonese, which was followed the whole classroom bursting out in laughter. We are convinced he was making fun of us the whole time. Our second class, he had all the people that didn't understand Cantonese sit in the first row, so we could have what he said translated. We sat in the front row, and no one translated anything for us. The class still was laughing when he said something in Cantonese. 

The language barrier will probably continue to exist because my Chinese class ended up being a Mandarin class instead of a Cantonese class. One day, I hope to be able to ask for directions at least in Cantonese.