Bonjour to a Minority Language in Hong Kong: French

However, living in Hong Kong is not without difficulty for the French professor. Although he mainly uses English and French when he is at work and with his family, he still tries to learn Cantonese from his wife because he thinks language is the greatest barrier in living in Hong Kong. He recalls whenever he tries to speak Cantonese, others laugh at him, which gives him a bumpy ride when learning Cantonese. He agrees that Cantonese is a difficult language to learn and he is not fluent in it, but he believes speaking the language is not something impossible for foreigners to achieve because many of his friends speak it well.

Denis’s three sons were all raised in Hong Kong and they all speak Cantonese, English and French fluently. Despite the fact that the three boys are trilinguals, Denis says they did not plan to train their children's language skills, rather everything just comes naturally. His children attended Cantonese kindergartens but they are all in French international school now because, when someday they move back to France, the children would be able to adapt to the French education system better.

Although Denis is likely to move back to France with his family in the future, he does not feel a strong desire to pass down the French heritage to his children intentionally as he is also open to diverse cultures. “I don’t think my children feel strongly French or Hong Konger. They’re strolling around the two worlds, not just two, but international world.” This may also explain why he appreciates that more people are learning a foreign language other than English and Mandarin in Hong Kong now. He understands that under the new education curriculum, the diploma of French language study is only limited to some elite and international schools, French is not as easily accessible in secondary schools as before. However, he is still optimistic about the general interest in acquiring a foreign language as an additional skill in Hong Kong. “And French of course, has the image of being romantic and a language of sophistication. These are clichés. But what matters to me is the students will find interest in this subject beyond their sort of perceived views of France.” “It’s of my highest priority to let the students know the language is correlated to different things; you can’t separate language and culture”, Denis adds.

Being a teacher of the French language in a foreign place, Denis insists on promoting his own culture in the hope to show the whole picture of France to the other part of the world.