"Flowers" triggered the "dialect craze", will dialects be eliminated in Hong Kong?
Meaning "Can you speak in tongues?"
Eating paitou (trouble), having sex (being naughty)... Recently, the Shanghainese version of "Flowers" has become a hit. The rich Shanghainese lines vividly show the Shanghai style of the 1990s.
While watching TV series, many people are immersed in this sub-accent, mocking themselves as "pidgins" (referring to their non-standard Shanghainese dialect) while picking up the increasingly unfamiliar Shanghainese dialect.
A reporter from Beijing Youth Daily noticed that in recent years, dialect elements have been common in literary works, movies, TV series, and online short videos, and young people have been imitating and following them.
"Flowers" is out of the circle
Netizen: The Shanghai version has more "Mi Dao"
"Crybaby."
"Thirteen o'clock (cutely stupid, expressing anger)."
"Hit me for sex?"
"Just fight..."
This is a classic Shanghainese dialogue from the recent hit drama "Flowers".
Miss Wang (played by Tang Yan) traveled thousands of miles alone, driving from Shanghai to Zhuji in order to "rescue" Mr. Bao (played by Hu Ge) who went into the tiger's den alone to explore high imitation Sanyang T-shirts.
When the two met, they learned that Mr. Bao was in danger. Ms. Wang was still frightened and squatted beside the accident car, crying with a pale face. Mr. Bao walked to the side, knelt down and entertained her with a smile on his face.
The drama version of "Flowers" focuses on Shanghai during the great changes of the times, with cross-narratives around A Bao, showing the ups and downs of the young people in Shanghai's prosperous business world in the early 1990s.
During the shooting, he used a large number of old objects representing Shanghai elements, and also selected places including the Bund, Peace Hotel, Fuzhou Road, Jinjiang Hotel, Garden Hotel, Zhangyuan, Baoyuan Road and other places for real-life shooting, striving to restore the scene to the maximum extent. The charm of Shanghai in that era.
The play has both a Mandarin version and a Shanghainese version. The two versions have the same scenes and plots, but the different languages bring different viewing experiences.
From literary works to film and television works, Shanghainese is an important feature of "Flowers".
The original author Jin Yucheng once said, "Dialect is a kind of flavor, which is the flavor that best represents a region." The creators also shared their understanding of the Shanghainese version, saying that the dialects in each region have their own unique The charm is a vivid reflection of the history and culture of a region, and Shanghainese has many local slangs, the emotions of which can only be expressed through the Shanghai dialect.
In fact, "Flowers" has frequently appeared in the entertainment industry since its broadcast.
Shanghainese has become an indispensable prop for the Shanghai-language version of "Flowers" to create the atmosphere of the era and the city. The audience's discussion of the Shanghai-language lines even exceeded the director, actors, and plot.
On social platforms, viewers are keen to share exciting Shanghainese dialogue clips from TV series.
Many viewers from Shanghai said, "If you want to watch the Shanghai version of "Flowers", it really has a more Shanghainese flavor."
While watching the show, many viewers also picked up unfamiliar dialects again.
Senior drama fans use Shanghainese to discuss character stories and plot trends, and analyze the standard of Shanghainese lines in the drama; migrant workers originally communicated in Mandarin in the office, but started speaking Shanghainese after watching the drama; many Shanghai viewers shared on the Internet, Discussions of TV dramas are full of dialects, "That's right! I don't post comments continuously, and reply to comments about Hong Kong and Shanghai gossip."
"Pidgin" plays a drama
Actor: "Teaching phonetics word by word"
As a Shanghainese born after 1995, Zheng Dong, a postgraduate student majoring in performance at Shanghai Normal University, rehearsed a Shanghainese comedy "Friendly Chess and Card Room" with his friends last year, telling the story of an old chess and card room at the entrance of an old Shanghai neighborhood.
There are six Shanghai citizen characters in the play, all played by local young people born in 1995.
There are many distinctive Shanghai dialects in this drama, such as: Cui Niao Gui (very tricky), Chi Baitou (received criticism), De Gua Gua Gua (really), San Dai Wu Tuo Jia Jia Jie (the appearance and appearance of the three generations are similar). Portrait of the mother-in-law)... In order to better present the character's personality and living conditions, they chose to perform it in Shanghai dialect.
"The dialect level of most people can be described as 'pidgin' in Shanghainese, and their speaking is unfamiliar and even convoluted." Zheng Dong said that the Shanghainese level of several actors is at the level of "can listen but can't speak well" " level, each line requires continuous practice.
In order to get the pronunciation right, the actors often make voice calls to teach each other word for word.
Sometimes they really can't figure it out, so they can only ask older Shanghainese for advice.
"Friendly Chess and Card Room" performed a total of 8 times in Changning District, Shanghai in the second half of last year. Each performance had an audience of about 50 people. Most of the audience were between 20 and 40 years old. They praised the Shanghai dialect used in the Shanghai opera.
"I have watched many stage plays and musicals, and this performance is unique. It is a drama dedicated to Shanghai babies... The whole process is basically in Shanghainese, and everyone speaks it very well."
Zheng Dong said that the choice of performing in Shanghai dialect in this drama was also related to the feedback from another previous drama.
The drama was set in Shanghai in the 1990s. At the performance, Zheng Dong temporarily changed a few lines into Shanghainese, and the audience became obviously lively.
"Many things are more interesting when expressed in dialects." Zheng Dong believes that the dialects of each place incorporate the wisdom of the local people.
“I feel like when you listen and speak in tongues, you have a sense of identity inside.”
Learn to speak the “local dialect”
Course: Learn about local culture by learning dialects
In fact, the “dialect craze” doesn’t stop online.
A reporter from Beiqing Daily noticed that in recent years, many universities, middle schools, primary schools and kindergartens across the country have offered dialect elective courses.
According to media reports, in 2013, more than 100 primary and secondary schools in Shanghai implemented Shanghainese teaching in school-based courses.
In 2015, Guangzhou Wuyang Primary School invited scholars to teach Cantonese promotion class "Learning Cantonese, A Few Ghosts (Cute)", and then launched Guangzhou's first school-based Cantonese textbook in 2017 to allow students to learn Cantonese more systematically.
Zhixin Middle School, a famous middle school in Guangzhou, also opened a Cantonese elective course in 2020 and invited full-time teachers from Cantonese education institutions to teach.
In 2021, Binhe Primary School in Hangzhou City will launch the "Little Yaoer Speaks Hangzhou Dialect" course to allow children to understand the local culture of Hangzhou through learning the dialect.
In addition, Shanghai Second Polytechnic University, Chaoshan University, Sichuan Tianfu New Area Aviation and Tourism Vocational College and other universities have also opened courses in Shanghainese (2022), Chaoshan (2019), and Sichuan (2019) respectively.
"Ju fei te (second tone), Su Jiaxin (sou jia xin)..." At the elective course of Yali Middle School, a key middle school in Changsha, the teacher was calling the names in Changsha dialect.
The students in school uniform stood up, raised their hands and answered loudly in Mandarin: "Here we come!"
The teacher on the podium repeated the word "arrive" in Changsha dialect (the tone first went up and then dropped).
The student imitated the teacher's tone and answered "Yes" again, causing laughter in the audience.
This elective course is called "Teaching You Authentic Hong Kong Changsha Dialect" and is taught by Changsha native teacher Liao Xiyan.
"Judging from the course selection situation, students really like dialect classes." Liao Xiyan said that according to the school's requirements, each elective course is limited to 55 students, and the dialect class is at full capacity.
In fact, Liao Xiyan’s original intention of choosing to offer Changsha dialect classes was related to the students’ interests.
At the beginning of this semester, a teacher solicited students’ opinions on elective courses on WeChat Moments. The students excitedly left a message: “Teach us Changsha dialect!” As a Changsha native, Teacher Liao has a deep affection for Changsha dialect, so she declared This course was offered.
Teacher Liao said that dialects are living fossils of language. They carry the human geography, customs and sentiments of a place from ancient times to the present, and retain almost all the historical and cultural information of a place. They are irrecoverable historical memories and non-renewable cultural genes.
Returning to the Shanghai-language version of "Flowers", the scene before the end of the play is quite meaningful from a linguistic perspective.
Mr. Bao walked out of the magnificent Peace Hotel, and changed from the turbulent Mr. Bao back to the mortal Ah Bao he once was. The young elevator attendant Xiao Xiaogu chased him out and said goodbye to him in Italian.
Previously, with Mr. Bao’s encouragement, Xiao Gu learned 26 languages.
When Xiao Gu said that he would insist on learning more foreign languages in the future, Mr. Bao said to him: "China has many dialects. In the future, in addition to learning foreign languages, you will also have to learn dialects. In the future, the Peace Hotel will not only have foreigners."
This sentence may not only be A Bao's farewell words to Xiao Xiao Gu, but also the director's advice to young people watching the drama.
This page’s article/our reporter Chen Jing’s intern Ma Anni
Coordinator/Lin Yan Zhang Bin
Source: Beijing Youth Daily