Bonjour to a Minority Language in Hong Kong: French

Mr. Thibault Carminho arrived in Hong Kong as an international business intern in 2012.

Four years later, he is the owner of a French pastry shop in Sheung Wan now. He came
to Hong Kong because it is ‘a big business and multicultural city’ as well as ‘the
most active city in Asia’. Although he came alone, he mentioned that Hong Kong
is ‘very easy to fit in’. "If I want to live like French in France here, it’s okay." Yet,
he tended to choose an uneasy way since he believes that a foreigner has to adapt
to the local culture, otherwise, they are only tourists instead of a part of Hong Kong.
His open-mindedness has brought many interesting linguistic experiences to him as
a result.

Thibault has tried learning Cantonese and he found the experience interesting.
However, the complexity of Cantonese tonal system and the linguistic differences
between French and Cantonese have brought him so many challenges. Thus, he is only able to use Cantonese in a daily basis, such as taking a taxi and ordering food in restaurants. Another factor that may drive him to learn Cantonese is he found that Hong Kong "people are nicer" to him when he speaks Cantonese than English. Despite his open-mindedness in learning Cantonese, he shared that some of his friends, who lived in Hong Kong for more than 12 years, can hardly speak Cantonese at all.

Not only does he share some interesting linguistic experiences with us, but also the issues of cultural identity. He mentioned that his cultural identity is ‘a mix of everything’. "I don’t feel like I belong to France anymore. I am from France but my country is Hong Kong." "My roots are French but I have got some Hong Kong habits." He runs when he sees the MTR doors are closing; he eats congee and so on, like other Hong Kongers do. He also makes friends here from different place like France, America, Hong Kong, Korea and Japan. It seems that all these add up to make him feel like he is ‘a French in Hong Kong’.