Discussion keeps the worldturning.
This isRoundtable. You're listening toRoundtable.
I'm NeilHolen, joined by Josh Cotterell and XingYu.
Coming up on the second half of theshow, we're diving into the rich and diverse world ofdialects.
As emergingwriters,musicians, and few makers in China embrace thesedialects, they are discovering new voices and unique ways to express theircreativity.
We'll be discussing the significance of dialects in modern Chineseliterature,music, andfilm, and why preserving these linguistic treasures is crucial for culturaldiversity.
And it's the time of the week again Roundtable's happyplace.
Butfirst, in recentyears, there has been a notable surge in popularity of novels written in original dialects among Chinesewriters, especially on social mediaplatforms, which have played a significant role in showcasing dialect-basedstorytelling.
From the bustling streets of Shanghai to the Chuanqu villages ofGuangdong, these dialects are finding new life through the creativity of emergingartists.
So before diving into this fun world of dialect works made completely indialects, I want to ask both ofyou, what is your favorite local dialect or accent besides yourown?
So first ofall, I'm from the north-eastern part ofChina.
So we speak a very differentdialect.
Dialect? I feel like it's an accent because I think I can understand like90% of what yousay.
Yeah, that's because you hear them alot.
And we do have some expressions that's exclusive to theregion.
And probably I think hundreds of years ago people in the city of Beijing or in other places they haven't heard of thisexpression.
Okay. But if you ask me what I like in terms ofdialect, I would say probably Chengdu or Sichuandialect.
That's because I watched a TV series called In Chinese Gu Xiang Bialai WuYang.
InEnglish, it's called There Will Be EmpleTime.
So the whole TV series was filmed in the city of Chengdu and people were speaking the localdialect.
And I find it very interesting and I just can't help myself learning some of these expressions like Bash theHun.
Yeah, even though I'm pronouncing it reallypoorly, butyeah.
No, you did a goodjob. I can get the laid back lifestyle and they are sochill.
So that's why I like thedialect.
That's an interestingchoice.
How aboutyou,Dash?Yeah,well, I'm also conflicted over whether or not to call it adialect.
But if you're asking me about my favorite dialect in relation to my locallanguage, which isEnglish, ofcourse, but I'm from the northeast.
I'm also from the northeast, but the northeast ofEngland.
And we have a very strong accentusually.
NowEnglish, as we allknow, has relatively fewer dialects when compared toChinese, mainly because of standardization andglobalization,right?
Obviously the global dominance of American English and things like movies andtelevision, etcetera.
So because ofthis, it started to overshadow a lot ofdialects.
But one dialect that I reallylove, although I would say that it's closer to an accent would be Irish orIrish.
Ah! And it was from the native Irish language aswell.
But I think that the sound ofit, it'salmost, sometimes it almost sounds like they'resinging.
It's likerhythmic. Kind of likeItalian.
Where Italian language is it'slike, its intonation is slightly different toEnglish, BritishEnglish,right?
It kind of rises likethis.
Da da da da dada. And so it's very pleasant tohear.
Maybe this is one reason why there are so many amazing Irishsingers, so much amazing Irish folk and singingtraditions, same withItalian,right?
I don'tknow. I'm just speculatingthere.
Butyes, I love thisaccent.
And I think that it does cross over into the realm of dialect with a lot of Irishspeakers.
Because it's not really the grammatical building makeup of thislanguage, but more about words that are used and colloquialisms and idioms and things like this that are not used inBritain.
Definitely. Since we're on thistopic, I think a disclaimer would be inneed.
That is when we're generalizing a little bit about which dialect or which accent sends a certain kind ofvibe.
Yes, we'regeneralizing.
But I think generalizing is a very important part for people to understand the outsideworld.
You have the feeling like seeing you has the feeling that for anybody who's speaking the Chengdu dialect or this Sichuanaccent, they send you the vibe of their relax andchill.
Maybe there werecolleagues.
You don'tknow. And also like forJosh, you feel like the Irishaccent, by theway, I like Irish dialect or accent aswell.
I've beenthere, I think I've lived there for threeweeks, only threeweeks.
Butyeah, I enjoy the way they speak and also some of the pronounceations are quitefun.
It's hard to understand in thebeginning, but then it grows on you and then you likeit.
You like the very energetic and very rhythmicvibe.
And then you feel like you understand it until you go into a bar and all of a sudden before it likes making a different language to eachother.
You don't understand themanymore.
Butnevertheless, we will be generalizing a littlebit, but forgiveus.
We're not trying to labelanybody.
We're just saying the fact that more and more people started to be able to appreciate differentdialects, differentaccent, especially different accent and dialects inmovies, in TVshows, in novels is because we started to have a better understanding about theworld.
We started to generate this kind of maybe it is a little bitblurry.
Maybe it's just a very vague idea or feeling about a certain place that when the dialects comeout, you associate your feeling about a certain place or about a group of people with that accent ordialect.
And that is the foundation of the work that's using thatdialect.
Or maybe that's even the kind of feeling that this specific work is trying to send through the using of the certaindialects.
So what are some popular or most significant cases in terms of using a certain dialect or accent in a movie or novel or a TVshow?
I think for me what caught my attention was a film released in2021.
It's called Ai Qing Shen Hua inEnglish, be forbusy.
I think that's the movie that I went to a cinema to watch a wholly Shanghai dialect-basedstorytelling.
I was quite worried about if I can get the whole story by looking at the subtitles because I cannot literally understand what they're talkingabout.
But after watching themovie, I somehow find it sointeresting.
So that's a whole new experience forme.
I think in previous years we have been consuming a lot ofstandard, mandarin TV shows and even films and TVseries.
So I think in a way that opened my eyes to depict an authentic place likeShanghai, how they are living in thisplace.
Probably you have been to the city many times but you don't know what their life is like or how their language can represent their culture in away.
So that's one case and also I think last year we have a hugely popular TV series called Blossoms in Chinese FanHua.
Also features ShanghaiNese.
So I think these are some of the examples that shows a great popularity among these young audiences as well in thecountry.
Actually I think that one of the best examples if I may give one from my part of theworld, which are some Scottish novels that then got turned into Scottish films aswell.
And Scotland also has a really long and influential deep literarytradition.
But in more recent years there was a series of books written by a writer called Irvine Welch and thebooks, what the most famous one is called TrainSpotting.
And this is quite a difficult novel to read for manyreasons.
It's about people in Scotland who are kind of impoverished but it's also written in a way that is quite beautiful in the sense that it usesdialect.
And although it's a bit tricky maybe in the first chapter to get used toit.
Eventually you really start to feel a type of authenticity that even if you're not from that area you're able to resonate with and it really gives quite a vivid image of life in that moment through thisdialect.
Because not only are they describing this area that they're in but also they're using the language that they know to describe it and it's somehowbetter.
It's somehow moredetailed.
It's somehow morereal.
And so when I read these novels by Irvine Welch I think that although they're quite distressing novels to be honest they still gave quite a vivid impression of that part of Scotland at that time that I don't think I would have gotten if it was written in standard BritishEnglish.
For sure dialect works areauthentic, they're fun toenjoy.
But in the meantime I was wondering if the artists themselves are very interested in using local dialects or using accent for sure that'sencouraged.
But in the meantime we also talk about the fact that at present with a mandering proficiency rate reaching over80% fewer people are speaking their originaldialects.
And like Xing Yu has said when you're watching a movie or a TV show using dialect mainly in dialect that is the kind of dialect because let's give a little bit of background information especially here in China that is for the kind of dialect that is closer to mandering speakinghabit.
It's relatively easier to understand to guess the meaning like DongbeiHua, the kind of dialect from Xing Yu's hometown or the kind of dialect that you enjoy SichuanHua, the Sichuandialect.
It's relatively easier to guess themeaning.
Yet if we're talking about ShanghaiNis, if we're talking about a certain dialect that my college best friend speaks that is a Zhu Jiang FangYan, a certain dialect from the southern part of thecountry.
Pretty sure for those I'm not talking about only people from the northernpart.
I think people from the southern part as long as they do not speak the exact dialect they would not be even close to the meaningcorrectly.
So it pose a challenge to general viewers and you need to readsubtitles.
So do we agree or what do youthink?
Do you think it's necessary to promote the use of local dialects or is just the personal choice of the creator of thework?
Definitely I think we need make efforts to preserve these Chinese dialects although there are lots of them and some of them are fading away in a sense because your people are speaking the dialects as yousaid.
And there are definitely barriers when it comes to creating literary works because some of the dialects if the general public cannotunderstand, I think in a sense it really creates barriers for the audience to first of allunderstand.
And second of all when you have to look at the subtitles it can be exhausting in a way and also when it comes to things like humor andwit.
The meaning somehow gets compromised in away.
So these are the challenges but it doesn't mean we just give itup.
They exist and they are meaningful in a way that they represent the regional culture ofChina.
So I think it's quite necessary for these TV producers to create these dialect based storytelling to present and also to showcase some of the regional characteristics of different places acrossChina.
Aside from those really good points I think that this also allows more room forinnovation.
We must remember that we are somewhat limited by ourlanguages,right?
Which is one of the reasons why intercultural communication can be sodifficult.
And you guys know this very well being fluent in at least two languages Iimagine.
Aside from your local dialects or whatever else you guys mightbe.
I don'tknow. Everyone at CDTN is so talented with so many secretskills.
But you know that there are certain things in Chinese that cannot be expressed in Englishright?
And vice versa aswell. It's verydifficult.
And so opening up these novels to the world of dialects as well I think that provides more room for innovation evenfurther.
And I've seen this myself in a lot of the novels that I just mentioned aswell.
So I think that there's a really important aspect there especially just with art in general it gives us more room forinnovation.
Another thing we notice is that for these dialect basedstorytelling, besides novels because if you write in a dialect definitely the entire work would bedialect.
But when it's movie and TVshows, sometimes they would promote or they would publish two differentversions, the mentoring version as well as the dialectversion.
And two I think in the past few years to the producer's surprise actually the dialect version would be even morepopular.
People would preferoriginal.
The original version with the dialects and also even they would have to read the subtitles is actuallyfine.
So yeah I think the market speaks foritself.
We welcome differentwork, the authentic work with thestyle, with theculture, with the whole package that we can enjoy for thestory.
And that is at least what the majority of audience or the majority of viewers are optingfor.
So Josh you work in the musicgenre, you write songs byyourself.
Do you think using dialect in a song as its lyrics would be a little bit different than using it in a novel or a movie or aTV?
I don't thinkso. I think that in music it's more approachable actually because when we hear something sung for whatever reason we seem to remember it more than when it's justspoken.
Because we have two things that weremember.
We remember the words if we know the meaning of the words but we can also remember a melody right in our mind even if we don't know what itis.
So I think that it works reallywell.
I think dialect and slang and all of these things work really well in music because as I mentioned you know you hear the melody and you'll probably even hearpeople.
I sometimes when there's a popular American or British artist that brings out a song that is also popular inChina.
I'll often hear some of my Chinese friends singing the lyrics but I ask them if they know what it means what they've said and they say I don't know what it means really but you know but they memorize it right they're able to say it and then if they're interested in the artist they can go and look it up and see what it means and it makes the song maybe even more special right if it's a new word oranything.
So I think if anything it works even better in music or it's even more approachable I shouldsay.
I know I ask you that question because mentoring has four tones and when you're singing the tones actually goaway.
flatten. No it's not flattened I think they're tweaked a little bit because when you're singing you donot.
Well the song does not reflect the four tone thing and the situation with this is that one you are actually singing in the song with a different dialect a different dialect might even be better but if you're singing with a different accent actually does not reflect that well and I think it's a funnyphenomenon.
Interesting. Yeah it's a funny phenomenon but definitely when it's a certain dialect it sends a special flavor like in any kind of storytelling or artwork and some people say one way to make everybody happy is to have the first verse of the lyric in the local dialect and then the second time using mentoring so have it all give people everything and you know it works for some work Iguess.
And at the same time we also get to see that with the development of artificial intelligence actually I think the latest development in regards to using AI to protect or to at least mimic a certain dialect or a certain language is that they do not need a text inputanymore.
So if for certain dialect that does not really have a character or words or written system it is still okay for artificial intelligence to take in the info and start trying to understand the language and maybe even talk back to you with thatlanguage.
Wow. Yeah that's a good start I think we can resort to technology to protect these very valuable beautiful fun dialects orlanguages.
Alright you're listening to Round Table coming up next Round Table's Happy Place staytuned.
Delivery.Delivery.Delivery.
What isit? Happyness from RoundTable.
It's the hour of Round Table with myself Neil Honglin Xing Yu andJosh.
So Happy Place what is yours for the week XingYu?
Yay my Happy Place for the week is a TV series that I've been watchinglately.
I'm sure you've heard ofit.
It's very very popular and it has been making headlines all over socialmedia.
It's called in English to the wonder in Chinesewater.
Ah littleThai. Ah yes yes yes yes yesyes.
We definitely have heard ofit.
So basically it's an eight episode TV series and it's an adaptation of a collection of essays written by Li Juen and directed by Chinese filmmaker a very young female Chinese filmmaker called Tang ChongChong.
And this TV series revolves around a story of a young female who pursues her dream of being a writer in the city but fails and then she comes back to her hometown in Alte which is located in Xinjiang Uighur Autonomous Region in northwestern part ofChina.
And her mom and her grandma they run a little shop in in Alte and somehow it depicts their life in Alte and also their friendship with the local herdsmen who areKazakhs.
So they they speak the Kazakh language as well on these beautifulgrasslands.
So first of all what impressed me most is the beautiful scenery of Alte which inspired me included many young viewers to visit Altesomeday.
And I've beenthere. And I've read the novel because I was doing homework about going and yes yes it'samazing.
You shouldgo. Okaycontinue.
Okay. And also it well depicted the nomadic life of these local northern Xinjiang herders and also it tells a healing story and a bit of comedythere.
It's more about the young female characters self-discovery and I am especially touched by what her mom tells her about the theory of being useful because in a way the young female protagonist she she failed in the big city and she felt she's just her life is meaningless and she was lost but her mom tells her that in these vast grasslands look at these trees and grass some of them are eaten they're consumed by the local herds and humans but what about others it's okay to just grow on these vast grasslands and you're free you know there's nothing wrong with it so every existence is meaningful in its own way and I am just so touched bythis.
I am also particularly impressed by the quote also from this novel it says to love to live and to get hurt I think it tells you to not be afraid of getting hurt it's a way to your growth so yeah that's the TV series that I've been enjoying Lily and I would really like to recommend others yeahto.
Yeah I've read the novel not the TV series I'll take a look when I havetime.
Your recommendation is well received okay how about you Josh what is your happy place thisweek?
Recently I've been working on or I've been improving I should say on some breathing techniques and I started this a couple of years ago I mentioned it a couple of years ago but I think I've made a lot of progress with this actually and like dire fragmatic breathing right and I have to do this before I sing actually and I think that's one of the reasons why it's help but actually it helps a lot with a reduction in like cortisol levels and things like this and it lowers stress and I when I first started doing this breathing I really thought that there wasn't much to it you know what I'm just breathing right but actually I've realized over two years that it's pretty life changing and if you do suffer from stress in any way I would highly recommend that you go and look up some techniques some mindfulness and focus techniques for breathing and I promise that you won't regret it really and the reason that I maybe I can't go into too much detail about it is because I think that it's important to get advice from a professional but recently through strong exhalation and inhalation deep breathing I've managed to really deal better with all the stresses that have come at me recently in my life which have been quite a few with work I must admit and sometimes you just need to take a minute breathe and see life for what it reallyis.
Is that a happyplace? Is anyone know what I'm talkingabout?
It's a happy and twen quill and nice place and I have three takeawaysactually.
First is that we should do that before doing the show because I think it helps with our breathing and our quality of our voices as well and second is that while you were saying that you've been practicing breathing both Xingyuan and I actually set up straight a little bit of a time to breathe better ourselves and the third thing is when I talk about having one minute of breathing moment I think Roundtable can have a one minute breathingsession.
Whoever's listening we have one minute of teaching you toexhale.
Inhale. Yeah we can do that for a minute so our listeners can enjoy theirshow.
Have fun and spend one minute doing this meditation exercise and start a beautiful day right fromthere.
We can see if we'll do that and then we move on to my happy place just like Xingyuan's happy place that has a little bit something to do with the second topic we talked about about dialect inartworks.
Actually my happy place has something to do with the firsttopic, the museum topic because my happy place is actually a Rose Lotus Chiu TsoCup.
Itis. The Rose Lotus Chiu Tso Cup is a cup apporcellinecup.
It was the commemorative cup specially made during theGuangxiu.
It's the Qing Dynasty Guangxi period to mark the autumn military exercises of the QingArmy.
So each one that has experienced the exercises during the exercise would get a souvenir of thiscup.
I think it's a very interesting thing and if you take a look at it it's actually verybeautiful.
The cup designed in the shape of a lotus flower features a base resembling theflowers, crystal petals forming the body and a stem serving as the handle as well as the straw that you can actually drinkfrom.
The petals of the cup are a radiant pink darker at the base and lighter towards the top withclean, vain and delicate attractiveglaze.
And the green stem handle is decorated with these small dots simulating the prinkles of a lotus stem and the hollow and we talked about you can actually use it as astraw.
So it's a straw cup in the QingDynasty.
And the funny thing about it is that it's a commemorative cup for the autumn maneuvers or the autumn trainings which is why there are thousands ofthem.
So you can find the real authentic cup in a lot of different museums and nowadays it is even a cultural and creative product that you can buy as asouvenir.
And I gotthat. It's now on my refrigerator as a magnet and I think it's a funny story to see how cultural relicssometimes.
It has this fun history and story behind it and you do not have to put them in pedestal thinking about it as something soserious.
It can be as fun as a little toy you can enjoy in yourkitchen.
So that is my happyplace.
It sounds so fun andweird.
It is a little bit weird and actually it's really in the shape of a plate rather than acup.
So I cannot imagine because it's reallyshallow.
I'm not really sure if people can drink fromit.
I mean when I say people I mean the kind of soldiers that actually got it as asouvenir.
But anyways it's a really fun souvenir and if you like it you can easily get itonline.
And that brings us to the end of today's round table thanks to Xing Yu and Josh and of course those of you who are stilllistening.
Until next time keep the conversations going and the ideasflowing.
