Bonjour to a Minority Language in Hong Kong: French

Our interviewee wishes to remain anonymous throughout this article. The pseudonym of “Aimee” will be used.

Aimee has been appointed as an attaché of a French organization in Hong Kong and she moved here with her family in 2014. She will stay here for a total of four years.

At her organization, Aimee is responsible for promoting French culture, in particular the language to local Hong Kongers. In the past, her organization has cooperated with multiple local institutions in holding events, such as the Le French May and the Francophonie Festival to celebrate the French culture. Aimee believes “there’s no way in separating language and culture”, so promoting the French culture will eventually help promote the language. In addition, her organization is also in collaboration with the French International School of Hong Kong and local universities to help students learn the French values alongside the language.

Being an insider of the culture promotion work, Aimee has soon realized that the French culture and people are generally appreciated and welcomed by local people. For example, French people are being regarded as romantic and sophisticated. She thinks that these stereotypes definitely limit the imagination of the French culture. However, she agrees that these limited yet positive stereotypes are in fact built upon the truth. So, she is determined to push the perception of French culture and people beyond current stereotypes and build themselves diverse images. Given that many Hong Kong people are fans of the French culture, it does make Aimee’s work easier. Local people are convinced that French fashion is glamorous, but they never know that the country also has advanced engineering development. “We don’t try to change these stereotypes, these stereotypes just need to be modified and extended but this takes time”, Aimee adds.

Apart from work, Aimee also enjoys her life in Hong Kong. She is not faced with any language barrier or other big challenge here, which made her transition very smooth. But she doubts if this is the result of her only getting along with people she can communicate with. She believes learning Cantonese will help her understand the city better, yet only by acquiring a language will not naturally lead to understanding of a culture. She develops the insight from her experience in South America that she spent six months learning Spanish, but she still did not understand how the city went as she had no idea of the culture. That is why Aimee believes even if she speaks fluent Chinese, she is still incapable of taking in many Chinese cultural values.

Aimee’s three-year-old son is attending an Anglo-Chinese kindergarten in Hong Kong because she finds that the English and Chinese language serve a social function which can help her son get along with local residents. Nevertheless, she insists in talking to her son in French not only because they will move back to France one day, but to also preserve their French identity. Aimee identifies herself as French even though she has resided in different countries; "French is my language, French is my culture." She thinks that the French language has a kind of emotional function which links her son to her. Aimee emphasizes she will always speak French to her son no matter where they live. Besides, Aimee is concerned that the popularity of English around the world would eventually promote “a unitary way of thinking” because people would be doing and thinking the same thing and there would be no more difference between countries. She even warns that it would lead to “a collapse of humanity”.

The increasing trend of French people moving to Hong Kong also catches Aimee’s eyes. From her knowledge, there used to be only expats who enjoy very good conditions come to Hong Kong, but now many young people and seniors come here to explore career opportunities. On the contrary, French families avoid choosing Hong Kong over other places because of multi-faceted problems in Hong Kong.