40 China The EconomistNovember 9th 2019
G
rowing upin the Dabie mountains of western Anhui at the
height of the Cultural Revolution, Yu Yan learned from a young
age that many innocent acts could get her into trouble, starting
with using her mother tongue—a dialect of the Chinese language
known as Lower Yangzi Mandarin—in her school playground.
Fully 70m Chinese speak some form of Lower Yangzi Mandarin, a
language that is unintelligible to Chinese raised in northern cities
such as Beijing. But back in those dark days of thought control, a
little girl chattering in mountain dialect risked a scolding—at
least—for not using putonghua, the state-standardised form of
Mandarin that was the language of Maoist orthodoxy.
Nearly half a century later, officials still promote putonghuaas a
tool of national unity. Yet the value of local dialects is on the rise, as
Ms Yu, who now manages an old people’s home in the coastal prov-
ince of Zhejiang, knows well.
Her private facility, called Riyuexing, is perched in a steep, ter-
raced valley above the county town of Wencheng. Its 160 residents
are mostly men in their late 70s or older. Rural families seem keen-
er on keeping grandmothers at home, Ms Yu observes delicately.
Old men have bad tempers, do not listen and can smell bad, she
says. Only about a third of her charges speak putonghua. That ob-
liges Ms Yu to hunt for care workers who can, between them, speak
the four or five local dialects heard in the home’s plain but airy cor-
ridors. Interrupting an intense game of mahjong, Chaguan asks an
89-year-old resident whether it is possible to make friends with
others at the home who speak different dialects. “You can’t,” he
growls, turning back to the tiles.
There are practical reasons to hire dialect-speakers, notably
when caring for residents with dementia, who need constant guid-
ance in a world turned foggy and frightening. There are commer-
cial reasons, too. The home opened in 2015, and though fees are
low, at about 2,000 yuan ($285) a month, rural families break with
tradition by placing the elderly in care. They need to know that the
residents will be treated kindly and that being put into the home is
not akin to a death sentence, as Ms Yu puts it.
An official study in 2013 estimated that 400m Chinese, or al-
most a third of the population, are not proficient in putonghua.
Most of them live in smaller cities, rural areas and regions withmany ethnic minorities. The education ministry has pledged more
effort to teach the official tongue. But in tucked-away corners of
China, like Wencheng, where dialects change from valley to valley,
linguistic diversity is increasingly seen as a business opportunity.
An ageing society and growing spending power in China’s back-
waters are bringing old people’s homes to unfamiliar places. To
prosper, this growing industry needs to talk in languages that its
newest customers understand. More generally, China is evolving
from a manufacturing and export behemoth into an economy sus-
tained more by domestic consumption. Businesses previously fo-
cused on large urban centres and coastal boomtowns. Now they
are looking for growth in smaller, unflashy cities where lower
housing costs, higher birth rates and more migrant-friendly resi-
dency laws could see annual household consumption triple be-
tween 2017 and 2030, according to Morgan Stanley, a bank.
Earlier this year Alibaba, a technology firm, announced a pro-
ject to teach its Tmall Genie smart speakers to recognise dialects,
starting with Sichuanese, the largest regional tongue, before mov-
ing on to Cantonese and eventually most others. Consumers in
smaller cities, especially older ones, are not always “savvy with
keyboards”, says an Alibaba representative, and are more likely to
treat smart speakers as a companion, calling up traditional operas
or health information, or audio-books for grandchildren left in
their charge. Younger consumers may be more comfortable in pu-
tonghua, but that does not mean that dialects will disappear, be-
cause speaking a dialect feels like “home”, she adds.
The central government remains capable of cruel chauvinism
towards minorities deemed a threat to national unity. Uighurs, a
Muslim ethnic group in the western region of Xinjiang, have seen
their language all but banned in schools and vanish from book-
shops, with long spells in prison or re-education camps for those
who resist. The Tibetan language is under similar pressure. But in
places like Wencheng, in the Chinese heartlands, the same forces
that drive commercial services to use dialects are also pushing lo-
cal officials to do the same. The office in Wencheng that issues
identity cards and other official paperwork recently opened a dia-
lect-speaking service desk. The same office offers video conferenc-
ing to the legions of Wencheng natives who live in northern Italy,
many as workers in clothing factories. The government wants to
maintain close links with overseas Chinese, so it is pragmatic
about the dialects that are commonly used in the diaspora. Lan-
guage is a complex business in Wencheng, a dusty town filled with
strikingly fine espresso bars, selling Italian coffee to returnees
who know their Lavazza from their Illy. Luo Jianyang, a café-owner,
explains how she brought her children home from Italy in 2012 be-
cause she worried about their poor putonghua. She now frets that
she should teach them Wencheng dialect, too.Can you hear me now?
Western politicians once confidently predicted that growing Chi-
nese prosperity and the emergence of a middle class would trigger
calls for political liberalisation in China. That proved overly opti-
mistic. The country’s rulers have chosen a very different, authori-
tarian path, insisting that only absolute control by the Communist
Party can promote continued development. But in spheres outside
politics, companies big and small are giving more thought to how
to make individuals feel heeded and respected. Even in unfashion-
able corners of China, millions of consumers have a voice, and—
unlike in the era of central planning—that voice does not always
have to speak standard Mandarin. 7Chaguan Dialectical materialism
Capitalism breeds new respect for regional dialects