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Mandarin is the official Chinese language. It is supposed to help everybody in
China and in the world to communicate easily with each other.
I will share with you how Mandarin became the official
language of a country having over 1 billion population. And how it got more and more popular since the late 1990s.
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In Chinese, Mandarin is called "Potonghua" (means "the common language")
or "Guoyu" (means "the country's language").
China was under many different dynasties rule.
Some of the ruling families came from the "West" (the northwestern part of China nowadays).
In
the past, these "westerners" were treated as "barbarian". They had their own language and/or writing.
But ruling China was not easy.
In order to strengthen their rules was to adopt the Chinese culture. Language
was one of them that the ruling family would work on.
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Some people confuse that Mandarin is actually the Beijing dialect or "language".
This might apply to the 13th century when it was in the Yuan dynasty.
During that time, it was spoken in the northern
part of China which was called "Zhongyuan" (means "the middle flat land"). It was the most prosperous
area for a long time and the origin of the Chinese culture.
Until the Qing dynasty in the 17th century, Mandarin
became very well-established and official.
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Before the mid 1990s, nobody in Hong Kong, my home town, would bother to learn Mandarin.
But as China became one of the super power in the world economically and politically, people realize how important of the
fluency in this language.
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Chinese Word Stencil
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This is my experience that I want to share with you to see the big difference before
and after the mid 1990s.
When I worked in a company during 1993-94, 95% of its business was dealing with China
and needed to speak in Mandarin. But when I went for the interview, all they cared was my fluent English.
However,
when I looked for a new job in year 2000, one of the job requirements was to speak Mandarin fluently. Nowadays, this
requirement is a MUST for almost every job in Hong Kong, even in some other Southeast Asian countries.
What a difference,
huh?
Wait...there's more. Chinese lessons in Hong Kong has always been in Cantonese, one of the Chinese
dialects. Now, it is a MUST, as well, for children to learn speaking Mandarin at school.
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Not to mention Mandarin is getting more and more important in other Chinese societies,
but also it is one of the 6 official lanugages of the United Nations (UN).
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