HOMEKONGERS
CHRIS
Nepalese Restaurant Owner in Hong Kong
Name: Chris
Age: 50~
Time spent in Hong Kong: 34 years
Nationality: Hong Kong Chinese
Migrated from: Nepal
Languages spoken: English, Nepali
Mother tongue: Nepali
Preferred Language: English, Nepali
School system attended: Received education in Nepal
QUOTE HIGHLIGHTS
Do you think it is important for you to teach your children Nepali?
“Actually since we live in Hong Kong it’s not very important but we still want our language to sort of survive. This is our long history, our language embodies a really long history. I think it's the same thing you know, people from the United Kingdom or America also like to keep their language, everyone is the same with their mother tongue (but circumstances dictate whether they can do it with ease or not).”
Having lived here for 32 years, do you have many local friends here in Hong Kong?
"Yes I do, since many people speak English in Hong Kong which enables me to communicate with them. However, I live in Yuen Long, and there are many old people there who cannot speak English. I will have to speak cantonese, but I tell you it is really hard to learn cantonese and I am not successful in that.”
PRAGMATIC CHOICE
Chris is an owner of two Nepalese restaurants in Tsim Sha Tsui and Yuen Long, both named Shangri-La Curry House. From the domain analysis we can see that when communicating in the workplace, he mainly uses English and seldom Nepali. In his restaurant in Tsim Sha Tsui where we conducted the interview, the employees consist of two Pakistanis and a biracial Nepalese-Chinese. Thus, English is obviously the only option given this context, as English is the only language they share and using Nepali with the Nepalese-Chinese attracts unnecessary confusion and reserve among colleagues. Furthermore, the Nepalese-Chinese is not fluent in Nepali. In certain instances when he work with suppliers from Nepal, he can use Nepali as it facilitates the process by using a common language.
With friends, he uses English with his local friends in both leisure and serious discussion. A notable observation is that he pointed out that he uses Cantonese with, and only with, store owners of older generations in Yuen Long, where he lives. From this observation, we can see that the use of cantonese in this scenario is a pragmatic decision, as he stated that doing everyday shopping in districts of high elder population such as Yuen Long requires him to communicate with “old people there who cannot speak English”.
HERITAGE LANGUAGE
However, despite identifying himself as more of a Hong Konger after 34 years living in Hong Kong and has no social connections back in Nepal, he still finds ways to use Nepal here in Hong Kong. From the domain analysis, it can be observed that aside from local friends, he also has a Nepalese social circle, in which he uses Nepali only. Given that he was born and raised in Nepal and Nepali is his first language, Nepali is a heritage language to him and communicating in Nepali still gives him a certain degree of social satisfaction. This correlates with the findings with 300 interviewees in Theories and concepts on language and identity (Lo, V. K. N., 2007) that “a person can reflect his or her identity with any language other than his or her heritage language.“
Other than that, he stated that he tries his best to teach his children and to use Nepali at home. Even Though he is aware of the state of minority of Nepali in Hong Kong, he still relate to it as “our language” and feels an obligation to preserve it.
Thus, from this observation, it can be assumed that the language preference of a person does not guarantee his or her personal identity and vice versa, but is more dependent to the context. Furthermore, heritage language is in theory inheritable.