The Hong Kong SAR government recruits people with high salaries, why is Mandarin so important?

Recently, the recruitment position of "Belt and Road" project specialist in Hong Kong has become popular. The position, offered by the Commerce and Economic Development Bureau of the SAR Government, earns HK$335.8 million a year, but also has a striking requirement: you must be fluent in Mandarin.

Some people say that Putonghua has undergone a transformation from a plus to a must-have, which shows that it is becoming more and more valued in Hong Kong. The Secretary for the Civil Service of the HKSAR Government, Ms Rebecca Lee, recently said in the Legislative Council that she will continue to strengthen the training of civil servants in Putonghua and enhance their overall ability to use Putonghua. She also said that after years of efforts, the proportion of Chinese used in official affairs within the government has been increasing, and more and more civil servants are directly using Chinese to write official documents.

absolutely necessary

Chinese and English are the official languages of Hong Kong. Cheng Wai-yuan, director of the Beijing Office of the Hong Kong SAR Government, who is already a veteran civil servant, recalls that before Hong Kong's return to the motherland in 1997, the civil servants and government employees system rarely used Chinese, and communication was mainly in English. After the handover, the first HKSAR Government began to put a lot of effort into the "two languages" (i.e. Chinese and English) and "three languages" (i.e. Cantonese, Putonghua and English).

In the second year of Hong Kong's return to the motherland, Putonghua began to become the core curriculum of primary and secondary schools in Hong Kong, and the younger generation slowly popularized learning Putonghua. According to the Census and Statistics Department of the HKSAR Government, the proportion of Hong Kong's population speaking Putonghua increased from 1991.18% in 1 to 2021.54% in 2.

With the increasingly close communication with the mainland, the frequency of use of Chinese and Putonghua has increased significantly. Ms Yeung said the SAR Government's policy is to maintain a civil service who is fluent in biliteracy and trilingualism. The conduct of official business and the transmission of information within the Government are conducted in the appropriate language according to the operational needs, the nature of the affairs and the addressee.

The high-paid Belt and Road Project Commissioner is responsible for leading the Belt and Road Office in Hong Kong and participating in the Belt and Road construction work. Cheng served in this position from 2021 to 2022. He introduced that this position should contact different institutions in the mainland, such as the National Development and Reform Commission, the Ministry of Commerce, the State-owned Assets Supervision and Administration Commission and other relevant ministries and commissions, the Trade Office of the Economic Affairs Department of the Liaison Office of the Central People's Government in Hong Kong, state-owned enterprises and central enterprises, etc., and participate in activities and attend meetings, so Mandarin skills are essential.

Study hard

When interviewed by reporters, Zheng Weiyuan skillfully introduced various situations in Mandarin. He began learning Mandarin in the 80s when he was studying at Chinese University in Hong Kong, and then traveled to the mainland every year, from Guangdong, Guangxi, Hainan to other provinces, autonomous regions and cities, sometimes staying for a month or two. He had more face-to-face communication with mainland compatriots, and his Mandarin level also improved. This has benefited him a lot on his path to becoming a political officer. From the Hong Kong Economic and Trade Office in Guangdong in the early years, to the later "Belt and Road" project commissioner, and now to the Hong Kong Beijing Office, every position is inseparable from fluent Mandarin.

He said modestly that older Hong Kong people like himself mostly speak Mandarin in simplified characters and are "halfway out of the house", so they are "congenitally deficient". For example, the four tones are indistinguishable, and the speech is pronounced in Mandarin; The vocabulary can't keep up, and when I am in a hurry, I mix Chinese and English; The differences in the idiomatic use of Cantonese and Mandarin words, such as "quality" and "quality", are difficult to distinguish. One of the tips is to listen to and watch more mainland news broadcasts and current affairs documentaries, and learn to expand his vocabulary through rounded narration and some subtitles.

The Civil Service Bureau of the HKSAR Government sees a similar need. The Civil Service College under the Bureau continues to promote Putonghua training for civil servants by providing courses covering different levels for civil servants of the HKSAR Government. According to available data, the Civil Service Bureau of the HKSAR has organised nearly 2017 Putonghua training courses and seminars from 2021 to 500, with a total of about 1,3 participants. At the same time, to facilitate and encourage civil servants to make more use of Chinese in official business, the Statutory Language Affairs Department under the Civil Service Bureau of the HKSAR Government has compiled a Handbook on Writing Government Documents with examples to provide language support services including Chinese, and set up an online learning resource and telephone enquiry hotline.

Deepen your knowledge

The ability to use Putonghua is one of the assessment items under the current performance appraisal mechanism for civil servants in the HKSAR. Learning Putonghua not only brings convenience to work and life, but also promotes learners' knowledge and understanding of the country. In order for Hong Kong to grasp the opportunities brought by the development of the Guangdong-Hong Kong-Macao Greater Bay Area and the National 14th Five-Year Plan, and actively integrate into the overall development of the country, it is very important for all Hong Kong people, including civil servants, to learn Putonghua well.

Ms Yeung said that in the second half of this year, the Civil Service Bureau of the HKSAR Government plans to resume the training courses on state affairs held in the Mainland, allowing some civil servants to attend training in the Mainland. The HKSAR Civil Service College will launch exchange programmes with other cities in the Guangdong-Hong Kong-Macao Greater Bay Area and explore feasible options for deepening exchanges with relevant Mainland units, so as to provide Hong Kong civil servants with the opportunity to stay in the Mainland for a longer period of time and experience local urban development in depth. While enhancing the ability of the civil service to use Putonghua, it actively integrates into the overall development of the country.

Mak Ganqu, chairman of the Council of the Hong Kong Putonghua Study Society, believes that if the civil service does not pay enough attention to Putonghua, it will affect their understanding and recognition of national development and policies. He suggested that consideration should be given to including Putonghua qualification requirements when recruiting civil servants, which on the one hand can help university students continue to learn and use Putonghua well, and on the other hand, it will help promote the understanding of civil servants' national conditions and further implement the principle of "patriots administering Hong Kong".

Ms Yeung Ho Bey Yeung, who visited the Mainland, said that during the trip, she exchanged views with local Hong Kong students, introduced them to the recruitment of Hong Kong civil servants, and welcomed students who are interested in serving Hong Kong citizens to join the civil service after graduation. In recent years, as more and more young people in Hong Kong are receiving Mandarin training in schools, the ability of Hong Kong civil servants to use Putonghua when joining the company has also been improving. Cheng Weiyuan believes that this highlights Hong Kong's "biliteracy and trilingualism" characteristics under the "one country, two systems" principle, as well as its unique advantages of relying on the motherland and connecting the world.

Ren Chengqi (Source: People's Daily Overseas Edition)