From the Imperial to the Empirical: Teaching English in Hong Kong

Author(s): Eugene Chen Eoyang

Source: Profession , 2000, (2000), pp. 62-74
Published by: Modern Language Association

Stable URL: https://www.jstor.org/stable/25595704

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 From the Imperial to the Empirical:
Teaching English in Hong Kong
EUGENE CHEN EOYANG

The experience of teaching English in Hong Kong, the former British

protectorate, now a Special Administrative Region of the People's Republic
of China, brings with it a host of frustrations and exhilarations?let us call
them challenges?not merely political but pedagogical and cultural as well.
There were changes even before the change of sovereignty on 1 July
1997?called the "handover," inelegandy, in English and the "return" (hui
gut), chauvinistically, in Chinese. These changes began in 1984, with the
agreement between Deng Xiaoping and Margaret Thatcher to return the
territory to China after more than five generations under British rule.1 In
the thirteen years between the signing of the Basic Law in 1984 and 1997,
changes in the attitude toward English have adversely affected the standard
of English in the territory. Whereas before, English was the language of
the elite, it has become stigmatized in the postcolonial climate since 1984
as the language of the imperialist oppressor. This shift in attitude was not
mere ideology, since those who governed Hong Kong were expatriates,
largely British, whose native language was English, and those who were
governed spoke Cantonese. As the expatriate civil servants were phased out
and replaced by largely Cantonese-speaking locals for whom English was
not the native tongue, English became deemphasized.

The author is Professor of Comparative Literature and of East Asian Languages and Cultures
at Indiana University, Bloomington, and Chair Professor of English at Lingnan University
in Hong Kong.

Profession 2000 62

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 EUGENE CHEN EOYANG III 63

Historical Context

Twenty years ago, people in Hong Kong were proud to speak English
whenever possible; what they found odious was Mandarin, the dialect spo
ken in the north of China and adopted as the national language?guoyu or
putong hua. The Hong Kong Cantonese eschewed Mandarin because Man
darin represented "Red China"; in addition, in the late 1940s and early
1950s, Hong Kong became the haven for thousands and thousands of Chi
nese who opposed the Communist regime and who brought their en
trepreneurial skills with them. The Communists were regarded as the
archenemy of the dynamic capitalism and free enterprise that Hong Kong
was developing into one of the most vigorous economies in Asia?indeed
in the world. In the 1950s and 1960s, mainland Chinese represented for
Hong Kong a pernicious and ominous ideology as well as a palpable mili
tary threat: but for the protection of the West (how comforting it was then
to be a British protectorate), Hong Kong would have been easy prey for
the People's Liberation Army, the largest standing army in the world.
Mandarin {putong hua) was the linguistic face of that enemy. In those days,
the West was seen less as colonial powers than as a political shelter, a bul
wark against an expansionist Communist China. English was thought of as
a shield against inroads by hordes of Chinese from the mainland;2 Great
Britain was considered more as an ally than as a colonial oppressor.
Then, in the 1980s, with the Thatcher era, two things happened, each
understandable in the light of history yet ironic in the face of the other.
The British Empire had one last death throe under the Iron Lady, and em
bers flickered in poignant if not pathetic recollections of a bygone power
in, say, the campaign against Argentina in the Falklands. The image of
Great Britain became once again (if for only a brief spell) the symbol of
empire, the British exploiting the yellow and brown brothers of the world
with their government and?presumably?their language. For the Third
World, English now became an embarrassment, a vestige of subaltern sta
tus, a reminder of subjugation by a Western power. Yet it was this same
Margaret Thatcher who developed the protocol that led to the dramatic
agreement in 1984 that Hong Kong (and Kowloon) be returned to the
motherland at the end of the ninety-nine-year lease signed originally in
1898. It is a major irony of modern history that the most conservative
prime minister in England in half a century should be the architect of the
agreement that decolonized Hong Kong.3
If Mandarin was barely tolerated in the late 1970s, by the late 1980s it
was English that had become odious to the local populace. During that
period of postcolonial decompression there was a resurgence of pride in

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64 III FROM THE IMPERIAL TO THE EMPIRICAL

Cantonese as a separate language and a distinct culture.4 No longer the de

spised dialect of the uncouth and the vulgar, Cantonese is being rediscov
ered for its vitality and its vigor. Scholars, poets, film stars, artists of
Cantonese origin have flourished, not all as famous as Bruce Lee and
Jackie Chan but each with at least local celebrity. "Canto-pop" became its
own indigenous contribution to the music of the world, influenced without
doubt by the West but with a unique Cantonese flavor. Under the impetus
of cultural studies aficionados in academe, local culture?from Cantonese
opera to Hong Kong's "Times Square" in Causeway Bay?has become the
object of academic study. Hong Kong film has become not only a major in
dustry but also a staple of research, sanctioned by scores of academic pa
pers, dozens of books, and annual conferences. Hong Kong literature is
now a separate and distinct corpus, seen as an autonomous body of work
with its own regional character. No longer are the Cantonese demonized
by westerners, who tend to be influenced by all the Chinatowns in all the
cities all over the world and think of the Cantonese as mere merchants,
without high culture or literature. Nowadays, the situation has been, to a
certain extent, reversed: in Beijing, Cantonese has become very chic be
cause it represents the elite of international business.
There was a time when it was English that denoted wealth and power
and Mandarin that connoted breeding and culture. No more. Indeed, Can
tonese chauvinism reached such extremes that some classes offered in the
English department at one of the more venerable tertiary institutions in
Hong Kong were conducted in Cantonese; some faculty members even in
sisted that dissertations written on a Chinese author or text be accepted for
a PhD in English! When the British expatriate who headed the English de
partment, a gracious, mild-mannered, practicing poet not given to radical
stands, stood firm against this total effacement of English at the graduate
level, he was deposed as department head. Anticolonialism, mindless and
without integrity, had reared its ugly head.5 This is by no means an isolated
incident: more recendy, a student majoring in contemporary English stud
ies made a similar proposition to me (she found English so difficult to
read!). To her surprise, I advised her not only to leave my office but also to
think about leaving the department.
The Asian economic crisis?which began with forest fires in Sumatra
and the fall of the Thai baht in the late summer of 1997, hitting Hong
Kong hard in 1998, and which now seems to be ending?has nipped the
bud of this Cantonese resurgence. Whereas it used to be assumed that
Hong Kong would enjoy uninterrupted prosperity, despite declines in the
level of English proficiency, it has become increasingly obvious that Hong

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 EUGENE CHEN EOYANG III 65

Kong is no longer the unique East Asian entrepot but must compete with a
very enterprising Singapore to the south, a dynamic Taipei to the north
east, and a fast-developing Shanghai to the north. Singapore has retained
its level of English (heavily accented, to be sure, but, in the minds of many,
superior to the level of English in Hong Kong). In Taiwan, the teaching of
English is a flourishing business: the English Teachers Association of the
Republic of China conducts an annual conference and book fair that at
tracts over 1,500 attendees. And the level of English in Shanghai?indeed,
in China as a whole?has improved markedly in the twenty years since
normalization of relations between the United States and China.
The entrenchment of English as the language of international business
can no longer be questioned. Yet Hong Kong students, who enjoyed an
uninterrupted economic boom for most of their lives, from 1984 to 1997,
have been slow to recognize the competitive pressures of the global mar
ketplace. They have been slow to acknowledge the importance of a sound
grasp of English as a key to success in that marketplace.

Deviant English versus Variant English

To teach English in Hong Kong?indeed, almost anywhere in the world?

is to realize that the world's language is, paradoxically, not the same
throughout the world. For the American teacher, the first adjustment is to
a brand of British English that prevails in Hong Kong. Here, one speaks of
"shroffs," which means a cashier at a parking lot (which is called a
"carpark"); or "secondment," meaning an extra assignment; or "substantia
tion," which is the equivalent of tenure in the United States. In Hong
Kong, one refers, in a way quite sinister to American ears, to "schemes" in
stead of "plans," and "to table" something means the opposite of what it
means in the United States: "to put on the table, to distribute on the spot"
rather than "to shelve, to postpone." I'm still not used to having correspon
dence and messages put into my "pigeonhole" (my office mail drop): I
don't like pigeonholing anything. And one may be, as an American, unnec
essarily embarrassed not to have brought a "rubber" to class, when what is
meant is a blackboard (or whiteboard) eraser. Understanding English in
Hong Kong requires a "capacious" ear, one that can negotiate variously ac
cented versions of the tongue, from Indian to Singapore ("Singlish") to
Malaysian to Filippino to Australian?not to mention the American and
British varieties. A staple of conference humor is the declaration of an Aus
tralian participant, who, to ears accustomed to American English, an
nounces a macabre intention ("I came to die!"), but to ears accustomed to
Australian English is merely pointing to his recent arrival ("I came today!").

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66 II FROM THE IMPERIAL TO THE EMPIRICAL

Hong Kong English is a language all its own: there are times when, in a
conversation with my students conducted in English, I am the only one
who does not understand. If language is the discourse of a speaking com
munity, and if Hong Kong English were the standard, I would be the stu
dent and my students would be the instructors. Standard English, whether
of the British or the United States variety, is a rarity among young people,
because they have been mutually reinforcing their nonstandard usage and
nonstandard pronunciation for years. For too many Hong Kong students,
the twelve to fifteen years of instruction in English before they arrive at
tertiary education constitutes temps perdu, because most of that instruction
takes place in Cantonese (another aspect of the anticolonial Cantonese
chauvinism I referred to earlier).6 One student told me that he had had
twelve years of instruction in English, the last six years with a Cantonese
speaking instructor who never spoke a word of English and who, in all that
time, never once corrected his oral or written English.7
Even the public signs will strike the native speaker of English as odd:
"Beware of Slippery Floor" signs are everywhere, connoting a slippery
floor lurking somewhere, whereas the more succinct and more contingent
"Beware! Slippery When Wet" has not found favor. Around Lunar New
Year, students are inclined to say "red pockets"?referring to the lai see, the
litde red envelopes that one distributes at the New Year to wish everyone a
prosperous future. What they mean, of course, are "red packets" When the
Lunar New Year comes around, I have taken to wearing a special set of
trousers, so that when I hear the phrase "red pockets," I turn inside out a
prepainted red pocket and say, "This is the only 'red pockef that you are
ever likely to see! You mean 'red packet'!" Breaking entrenched habits re
quires extreme measures.
Saint Joseph's College, a Hong Kong "middle school" (read "high
school": in Hong Kong, confusingly, college can designate a secondary
as well as a tertiary institution), proudly displays a banner that reads,
ridiculously: "Forward, nor flinch, nor fear, into a New Millennium!" Al
though the meaning of the locution is unmistakable, the wording strikes
native speakers as glaringly unnatural. How would we say the same thing?
we ask. "Forward, without flinching and without fear, into a New Millen
nium" may make us more comfortable. (For more effective sloganeering
one could have ventured forth, alliteratively, with "Forward, without fear
or flinching, into the future!"). Sometimes it's a matter not of usage or
grammar but of semantic perspective?perhaps a different logical appreci
ation for the difference between the abstract and the concrete, as in this in
junction: "Illegal Parking Will Be Impounded" (cars illegally parked will
be impounded).

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 EUGENE CHEN EOYANG III 67

Some solecisms can be traced to slippage between English and Chinese

words that do not altogether fit in meaning. In English, play is a word for
children's activity that is quite innocent, but for adult activity it is decidedly
not innocent.8 However, in Chinese, the "equivalent" can be used, without
prejudice, for either children's fun or for more sedate grown-up pleasures,
like chatting or merely getting together. The Chinese equivalent for "Let's
get together this weekend" would be, literally, "Let's play a bit this weekend."
Hong Kong students have "translated" their Chinese into expressions like
"We played with friends over the holidays" or "Would you like to play with
me this weekend?"?locutions that in native English sound slightly indecent.
Nowadays, this mislocution takes the form of "I played ICQ over the week
end," referring to the most popular e-mail program in Asia. The phrase is
now so entrenched that it has become difficult to explain that, in English,
one never "plays e-mail" or "plays" on an electronic bulletin board, however
enjoyable either activity may be. But my students may not be entirely off the
mark, for there is a nuance in the wordplay used in this context that is en
tirely appropriate. Their communications, whether one-on-one or in chat
rooms, are viewed as frivolous, not serious activities, intended as diversions
rather than as intense and serious exchanges of thought and information.
Cantonese English is governed by certain transforms that accommodate
the nonexistence in the dialect of the dental fricative /th-/ (thorn) and the
voiced labial dental fricative /v-/, for which they routinely substitute the
voiceless labial dental fricative li-l and the approximant /w-/ respectively,
so that "thank" comes out "fank" and "victim" comes out "wictim." Some
of these transforms are risible, as "myth" is heard as "miff" and "think" as
"fink." These phonetic transfers have become so routinized that they pro
vide many opportunities for puns in Hong Kong that would be incompre
hensible elsewhere. For example, the confusion of li-l and /th-/ yields a
pronunciation of "free" for "three": to the Cantonese ear, the distinction is
negligible, but to a native speaker of English it is crucial. Add to that the
Cantonese penchant for sliding over final consonants in a word or sylla
ble?so that "five dollars" comes out "fye dollah"?and the instances for
expressions that totally nonplus native speakers of English will multiply. A
word like "thoughtless" may sound suspiciously like "fuckless," a colorful
and useful neologism but not a word favored by demure speakers of English
(this example derives from an actual classroom instance). A clever advertis
ing copywriter exploited the li-l = /th-/ equivalency for the Cantonese by
hawking both the speed of his product and its availability, coming up with
"One, two, free." And a greeting card is sold locally with an image on the
front of a fan and an image of a bridge (pronounced in Cantonese as
"kyu"): inside, the message is "Thank you!" ("Fan kyu" = "Fankyou").

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68 III FROM THE IMPERIAL TO THE EMPIRICAL

Change in Mission

The tertiary education sector in Hong Kong is now more than four times
larger than what it was in 1983, enrolling around 10,000 students then and
some 45,000 students now. In addition, the number of institutions of
higher learning has more than doubled. In 1983, there were four institu
tions: the University of Hong Kong, the oldest of the four (founded in
1911); the Chinese University of Hong Kong, which was established in
1963 through the amalgamation of three older colleges (New Asia,
founded in 1949; Chung Chi, founded in 1951; and United, founded in
1956); Hong Kong Baptist University (founded in 1956 and approved as a
postsecondary college in 1970); and Hong Kong Polytechnic University
(formerly Hong Kong Polytechnic, founded in 1972). In addition, the fol
lowing have been established: the City University of Hong Kong (1984,
formerly City Polytechnic); the Open University (1989, formerly the Open
Learning Institute); the Hong Kong University of Science and Technology
(1991); the Hong Kong Technical Colleges (1993); the Hong Kong Insti
tute of Education (1994); and Lingnan University (established as a college
in 1967, approved as a postsecondary institution in 1978, and accorded uni
versity status in 1999).9
Initially, tertiary education was supported largely by private sources, but
since 1983 it has increasingly been developed by the public sector. A 1996
report from the University Grants Committee (the overall governing body
for tertiary education in Hong Kong) contained the following observation:

The increasing demand for higher education, which changed it from a

small-scale and largely private activity to a major industry substantially
supported by the Hong Kong taxpayer, occurred for a variety of reasons.
Raising the school leaving age produced much larger cohorts of young
people who had higher education as an attainable goal. The linking of
academic qualifications with upward mobility (long present in Chinese
society) led to parental pressures for children to exploit the educational
opportunities as far as possible. As Hong Kong industry and commerce
moved from low-skilled, low-wage production towards more sophisti
cated markets and outputs, employers needed a better educated work
force, including increasing numbers at the highest level. Government
itself, both because of its responsibility for meeting the aspirations and
the needs of the people of Hong Kong and because of its own increasing
requirement for well qualified personnel in such areas as the civil service,
health and education, fuelled the demand. ("Higher Education" 17-18)

The shift in the attitude toward higher education, reflecting a growing

worldwide trend, is to view it not so much as a privilege for the few as an

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 EUGENE CHEN EOYANG ||| 69

opportunity open to all. Quality of teaching rather than quality of students

has become the primary focus. The University Grants Committee, com
mitted to reviewing teaching quality, has subjected tertiary institutions to
periodic examination in a process called the Teaching and Learning Quality
Process Review, which seeks to ascertain the facilities in place to measure:
(1) student evaluation of teaching, (2) developmental facilities to improve
teaching, (3) departmental involvement in assessing teaching effectiveness,
and (4) the role of teaching in personnel decisions (hiring and firing).
Unlike the older institutions, the universities established since 1983 can
no longer operate as pass-through pantheons, that is, elite institutions that
certify the pedigree of those who pass through as students and as faculty
members. There is a definite pecking order of tertiary institutions, with
prestige measured proportionately to the hoariness of the institution. This
hierarchy is not merely perceptual, because it is enshrined in the admis
sions mechanism for higher education, the Joint University Programme
Admissions System, which matches test scores, students' preferences, and
available places. The higher the examination score, the more likely stu
dents would be placed at the institution of their first choice, which is more
likely to be one of the older institutions. Happily, the remuneration system
in Hong Kong permits the newest institutions to compete on an equal
basis with the oldest institutions in attracting quality faculty members.
Of course, attitudes die hard, and most students are still more con
cerned with the cachet of a university degree than with the quality of the
education they receive. However, with the shift of financial support from
the private to the public sector, education is becoming yet another com
modity in which the consumer?in this case, the Hong Kong taxpayer?
is seeking value for money.

The Role of English in a Globalized Economy

It is now generally recognized in Hong Kong that the anticolonial atti

tudes that have been so rife for fifteen years or more have seriously crip
pled Hong Kong's ability to compete in a globalized market where
command of English is viewed as a sine qua non. Tung Chee-hwa, the
chief executive of the Special Administrative Region, on a visit to the Ling
nan University campus, remarked that he had been told by a telecommuni
cations company that it was recruiting graduates from mainland China
rather than Hong Kong because their English was better.
On his visit, the chief executive asked why the standard of English in
Hong Kong is so poor. One factor is certainly motivation: the level of En
glish in mainland China is now quite impressive, especially among the

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70 II FROM THE IMPERIAL TO THE EMPIRICAL

younger generation, and the reason is that any hope of escaping the con
straints at home rests on one's English skills. Hong Kong, however, is too
comfortable and its young people too complacent. Until 1998, they enjoyed
a period of uninterrupted economic prosperity: they saw instant million
aires, unschooled farmers and fishermen who sold parcels of land to
wealthy property developers. It is estimated that Hong Kong can boast over
100,000 millionaires, perhaps more than any other city in the world.10 In a
booming economy, the need to develop skills in spoken and written English
will not be apparent. In the more than three years I have taught in Hong
Kong, I have yet to meet a student who had any burning wish to emigrate
(perhaps because students are nervous about their English), whereas it is
the dream of most young men and women in China to escape to the West.
The acquisition of wealth in Hong Kong without a command of English
prior to 1998 became a familiar scenario: when the acquisition of wealth
seemed independent of one's command of English, students could hardly
be expected to appreciate the importance of learning English properly.
However, with the Asian economic crisis the bubble of complacency in
Hong Kong burst: property values plummeted to 50% of what they were
before 1998, and young people, many of whom have been known to invest
in the real estate market with their allowances, are beginning to wonder
about being competitive in the job market. In that respect, and ironically,
bad economic news may be good pedagogical news. Students now appear to
be a litde more motivated to study English. Even some students who major
in Chinese literature (at least some of mine) have lamented the fact that
their curriculum does not require them to take more courses in English.
If it continues to pursue the path of an anticolonial chauvinism, Hong
Kong risks falling behind its near rivals in English competence, which
means, in effect, falling behind in economic competitiveness.11 For a major
world-class cosmopolitan city, Hong Kong has been remarkably provincial.
But there are signs that this provincialism, this Cantonese chauvinism, is
proving too cosdy to sustain. More and more, not only the better jobs but
all jobs require an explicit bilingualism that is implicidy trilingual, specify
ing English and Mandarin (and assuming native Cantonese); yet the civil
service sector, the business sector, and the education sector are all having
difficulties finding enough qualified applicants with adequate English
skills. The job notices in the English-language newspapers, like the South
China Morning Post and the Hong Kong Standard, which constitute the bulk
of most issues,12 are full of notices of job openings that require good English
skills as well as native familiarity with Chinese. This is true not only of the
English-language press, where English skills would inevitably be empha
sized, it is also true of the Chinese-language newspapers in Hong Kong,

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 EUGENE CHEN EOYANG III 71

which specify English-language skills, sometimes even for the most menial
of positions.13
The People's Republic of China, whatever its occasional belligerences
toward the United States, has adopted a strong policy in favor of the teach
ing of English, which is taught all through grade school and high school.
Indeed, the emphasis on English for academic discourse is so strong that
the government in China, I'm told, once considered a requirement for uni
versity instructors under the age of thirty-five to teach one out of four
courses in English?regardless of the subject matter taught. This dracon
ian requirement may never be implemented, but it clearly reflects the im
portance that the PRC attaches to English proficiency as the hallmark of a
world-class education. It is clear that, however anti-Western Communist
China may be, it is not deterred by any rabid anticolonialist mind-set from
promoting the study of English. The People's Republic of China may be
anti-imperialist, but it is certainly not antiempirical.

Personal Reflections

My experience teaching English in Hong Kong has not been without its
frustrations, but when they are taken with a grain not of salt but of humor,
these frustrations turn out to be fascinating challenges. To accommodate a
different teaching context, I've had to invent new teaching methods. In
order to overcome the extreme reluctance of Hong Kong students to partic
ipate actively in classroom discussions and respond voluntarily to questions,
I have resorted to extreme measures. I recognize the cultural factors that in
hibit Chinese students, naturally shy to begin with, from volunteering in the
classroom. Traditional Chinese culture frowns on any public display of one
self: any confession of ignorance or incomprehension may lead to a loss of
face, and any display of brilliance and insight is liable to be censured as
showing a lack of appropriate humility. Nevertheless, it is important that
Hong Kong students appreciate how much more favorably volunteering is
looked upon in the West. Saying this abstractly, however, makes no impres
sion, and no amount of cajoling or enticing will induce preternaturally shy
Hong Kong students to venture forth as volunteers. To combat this, I once
resorted to a teaching strike?I simply refused to continue the class until
someone volunteered. It's implied coercion, to be sure, but conceding the
point and simply calling on individual students to speak up defeats the pur
pose of the lesson on the importance of voluntarism in the global culture.14
Not only have I learned new ways to teach, I have also learned, surpris
ingly, a great deal about English and its perversities that I had scarcely no
ticed before.15 For example, why is it that, despite the fact that both courage

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72 II FROM THE IMPERIAL TO THE EMPIRICAL

and bravery are nouns and mean approximately the same thing, we can say
that we have the "courage" to do something but not that we have the
"bravery" to do it? Some locutions and their different semantemes rein
force my conviction that meaning in language cannot always be explained
by the principles of structural grammar.
Some errors of usage are so striking that they lead to semantic and ety
mological speculation. For example, of all the nouns that can be the direct
object of the verb to learn, knowledge isn't one of them. Although grammati
cally acceptable, usage precludes "I learn knowledge," an expression I came
upon again and again in the essays of my Hong Kong students. I also real
ized that, conversely, one can use the noun knowledge with virtually any
verb that takes a direct object. One can say, "I secure knowledge," "I ac
quire knowledge," "I steal knowledge," "I appropriate knowledge," "I bor
row knowledge," "I lend my knowledge," and so on. But it is unacceptable
to say, "I learn knowledge." A postmortem etymologist might suggest that
knowledge is stricdy defined as information or insight that is transmitted in
the process of learning, but that is not the definition you will find in most
dictionaries, whose definitions of knowledge say nothing about associating
the noun knowledge with the verb to learn.16 However, if we perform a paral
lel analysis, we realize we also cannot say, "I learn erudition," or "I learn in
formation." Hence, we realize that knowledge refers not to brute facts or
information but, rather, to data or information previously internalized.
Thus it would be as redundant to say, "I learned knowledge," as it would be
to say, "I learned learning."
Another instance illustrated the gestural character of words. For my stu
dents to address me in writing, I offered them the salutation "Dear Eu
gene" or "Dear Professor Eoyang." Most chose the latter. One student,
however, gilded the lily and wrote, "Dearest Professor Eoyang?." I let this
go?even if it was a bit arch. As the exchange proceeded, my correspondent
became more familiar and abbreviated, and pretty soon I was opening mes
sages that began with "Dearest Professor." That was OK as well. But when
my student proceeded to the next stage of abbreviation and addressed me
as "Dearest," I could forbear no longer. "In your life," I wrote the student,
"if you are fortunate, there will be but one or two people whom you could
appropriately address as 'Dearest,' and I don't think that I am one of them."
Some discoveries are not as definitive or unequivocal. When I assigned
an essay question in an examination, to preclude the possibility of copying
or memorization, I impressed into service the old standby "Write about the
most remarkable character you've ever met," expecting heartfelt disquisi
tions on fascinating figures, odd portraits of eccentric characters, paeans to
underappreciated parents (a la Reader's Digest). However, one essay caught

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 EUGENE CHEN EOYANG III 73

me up short, because it was about me. Embarrassed as I was at the atten

tion, I was, however, far from flattered, because the essay was written in
such execrable English that it clearly exposed my shortcomings as a teacher.
Even one's triumphs can be humbling. To a teacher, and not only of En
glish, no lesson could be more heuristic.

NOTES ?
I am indebted to Barry Asker, Brian Bridges, Joseph Lau, and J. Barton Starr fo
their corrections and suggestions on an earlier draft; Francis Chan and Fu Baonin
were also generous with their expertise. However, any errors that remain are mine.
Actually, Hong Kong Island and the southern part of Kowloon Peninsula were
ceded in perpetuity in 1842 and 1860 respectively, but in the Sino-British negotiation
the Chinese insisted that they be treated the same as the New Territories, which wer
granted to Great Britain under the ninety-nine-year lease signed in 1898.
2It is a double irony that nowadays it is Beijing that is preventing hordes of its ow
people from entering Hong Kong. Indeed, it is harder for Chinese nationals to imm
grate to Hong Kong (despite the fact that it is, technically, the same country) than fo
citizens of any other country.
3This irony is on a par with that of Richard Nixon, the most rabid hater of Comm
nists, being the instrument for the restoration of United States-Chinese relation
in 1972.
4The fact that Western linguists categorize Cantonese as a mere dialect of Chinese
is prejudicial: if speakers of two tongues cannot understand each other, then what they
speak constitute different languages. The illogic of Western characterizations of lan
guages and dialects can be seen by this contrast: Danish, Swedish, and Norwegian are
mutually comprehensible but characterized as separate languages; Cantonese, Shang
haiese, and Mandarin are mutually incomprehensible but characterized as dialects. Max
Weinreich was not far off the mark when he said, "A language is a dialect with an army
and a navy" (qtd. in Pinker 28).
5These elements have, fortunately, been deflected, and while it is possible to submit
dissertations in Chinese on Chinese subjects, they are now accepted only in depart
ments other than English.
6A recent reversal of this trend, initiated by the Department of Education, has led
to the recruitment of "native speakers" as middle school teachers of English. Well
intentioned as this is, such a policy is ultimately racist and resuscitates old colonial prej
udices and anticolonialist resentments. Native speakers are not automatically superior
teachers of a language, nor are nonnative speakers always inferior. Language teaching
competence is what should be required?in native as well as nonnative candidates for
the teaching profession.
This instance should not, however, inspire condescension among Americans, whose
educational system does not come close to offering twelve years of instruction, good or
bad, in any foreign language and whose foreign language courses?immersion pro
grams aside?more often than not use English as the language of instruction.
8The otherwise neutral word adult has been, might one say, "adulterated" in contem
porary English when used in conjunction with certain pastimes, as in "adult books" or

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74 HI FROM THE IMPERIAL TO THE EMPIRICAL

"adult movies." A very serious and somber Chinese friend was delighted when, first
coming to the United States, he spotted a sign in Cincinnati indicating where he could
while away a few hours waiting for his next bus: imagine his consternation when he
stepped into an "adult" bookstore!
9Lingnan in Hong Kong, which consisted initially of primary and middle schools,
was reestablished by alumni of the venerable Lingnan University in Canton (founded in
1888, ten years earlier than Peking University) after the University in China was dis
continued in 1966; Hong Kong's Lingnan University (then College) was officially regis
tered in Hong Kong's Post Secondary Colleges Ordinance in 1978. A new Lingnan
University in Canton has been created, but it is part of Zhongshan University in Can
ton (Guangzhou).
10According to the Hong Kong Tourist Association, there were 1,500 Rolls-Royces
in Hong Kong (see "Hong Kong Records"), and there were 2,299 Mercedes-Benzes
sold in 1999 (a down year; see "Roundup").
nThe government has even started a Workplace English Campaign, funding it at
the HK$40 million level (US$5.19 million). See South China Morning Post 6, 23.
12The South China Morning Post for 19 February 2000 (a Saturday), for example, car
ried 134 pages of job notices in nine sections. On other days of the week, there are still
ten pages of job listings.
13It may be true that some of these job notices are merely for show?a publicity stunt
to upgrade one's corporate image?but who can doubt that English in an increasingly
globalized marketplace can no longer be considered altogether for show?
14A tacit compromise has developed. I ask for volunteers just before a break in the
class: the students then confer among themselves and decide on the "volunteers" by the
end of the break.
15Many of these are detailed in my "Perversities of the English Language."
16The Oxford English Dictionary is a rare exception: of the fifteen definitions for
knowledge in the OED, only two refer to learning. In definition 10, knowledge is defined
as "acquaintance with a branch of learning, a language, or the like"; and definition 11
reads: "The fact or condition of being instructed, or of having information acquired by
study or research; [...] information acquired by study; learning; erudition."

WORKS CITED
Eoyang, Eugene. "Perversities of the English Language." Hong Kong Linguist 17
(1997): 1-9.
"Higher Education in Hong Kong: A Report by the University Grants Committee of
Hong Kong." Oct. 1996.
"Hong Kong Records: A Breakdown of Where the Region Ranks as Number One" [in
Chinese]. Sing Dao Daily 28 Feb. 2000: A08.
"Knowledge." The Oxford English Dictionary. 2nd ed. 1989.
Pinker, Steven. The Language Instinct. Baltimore: Penguin, 1994.
"Roundup on Local Automobile Sales in 1999" [in Chinese]. Apple Daily 5 Feb.
2000: E07.
South China Morning Post 29 Feb. 2000: 6+.

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