Church

There are more than 25 churches using Chiu Chow language to worship in Hong Kong. The first Chiu Chow speaking church is the Swatow Baptist Church Kowloon City which started in 1937. During that period of time, Chiu Chow people fled from Swatow to Hong Kong for escaping from the World War II. Among the refugee, one of the christian, the Yao family came to Hong Kong and set up the first Chiu Chow speaking church. As life were difficult at that time, the church was not only aimed to be a place for worship, but also providing different services to the Chiu Chow people, such as medical, food, education and entertainment. It has slowly turned the church into a small community centre of the Chiu Chow people and gathered a group of Chiu Chow speaking people from that time. Gone were the difficult days, churches set up in different areas in Hong Kong are now being used for worshiping.

“I think Chiu Chow people are quite proud of ourselves.”

Tim goes to the Swatow Baptist Church Kowloon City every week to participate in the worship. Being a Swatow Church, the worship which lasts for around one and a half hour will be conducted in Chiu Chow. “We used Chiu Chow language to worship and we have our own Chiu Chow gospel songs,” said Tim delightedly. He said that he was not a very fluent speaker of Chiu Chow, but he still need to use Chiu Chow language when he was up on the stage to lead the worship. Talking about the history of his church, he admitted that sometimes Chiu Chow people are too proud of themselves, “Sometimes we are a bit distancing ourselves to the others. We prefer to play more in-group.” Regarding the early years of the establish of the church, churches at that time were only set up for Chiu Chow language speaking people. They chose to use Chiu Chow language to worship because they wanted to form a community of their own, believing that people from the same origin were more trustworthy. “I think this is the way to show that Chiu Chow people are having such a strong identity which they do not want to lose their own culture.” added Tim.

However, as the time went on and Chiu Chow people are having the third generation here in Hong Kong, churches have to change according to the pace of the younger generation. “We now have two types of worship: the traditional one and the modern one.” said Tim. In the traditional one, Chiu Chow is still being used throughout the whole worship because there are still a number of old generation Chiu Chow people, who are having Cantonese as their second language and listening to Chiu Chow will be more comfortable to them. On the other hand, no longer does the modern worship in the church take the Chiu Chow language. When more people coming from non-chiuchow background and most of the younger generation in Chiu Chow family do not know how to speak in Chiu Chow, they have shifted to use only Cantonese in the worship. “I am not sure for how long would the Chiu Chow speaking worship be presented, but I will try my best to attend the traditional worship for I see myself as one of the Chiu Chow people.” added Tim, “Speaking in the same language seems more united and outsider would not understand about it.”

Interview 1

“I am definitely one of the Chiu Chow people and Chiu Chow is part of my life.”

Tim, a 23-year-old university student, is one of the active members in the Swatow Baptist Church Kowloon City. Born and raised in a Chou Chow family in Hong Kong, he can speak in Cantonese, English, Mandarin and Chiu Chow. Though his grandparents and parents did not formally teach him how to speak in Chiu Chow, he naturally adopted the language by listening to his parents and grandparents conversations in daily lives. Apart from the family setting, attending church worship regularly is another way for him to get contact with the Chiu Chow language.

Table 3.1 Language Diary of Tim

Interview 2

Brian, a dentist in his 20s was grown up in a Chiu Chow family. He can speak in Cantonese, English, Mandarin, Chiu Chow, and French. Cantonese is his mother language, while Mandarin, English and Chiu Chow is his second language and French is his third language where he has learnt from the tertiary education. He lived with his grandparents who can speak Cantonese and Chiu Chow. Brian will often go to Chiu Chow speaking churches to worship.

“They think Chiu Chow is the same as Cantonese.”

Although Brian lived with his grandparents who use Chiu Chow language in their daily conversations, Brian was not acquiring most of his knowledge about Chiu Chow language from them. “When I ask my grandparents to teach me some Chiu Chow basic words, they refused to do so because they think that there is no such ‘dialect’ of Chiu Chow.” Said Brian

with a sigh, “and they are not willing to speak with me in Chiu Chow as they thought young people having Chiu Chow accents will be teased by the others out in the society.” Brian grandparents, as most of the minority language speakers, are claiming that it is not necessary for the next generation to learn the language as they think that Cantonese and Chiu Chow language are very similar. Brian’s grandparents think that Chiu Chow could be acquired once he knows Cantonese. However, Brian could not easily acquire the language by only listening the Chiu Chow conversations between his grandparents without any chance to practice.

“I want to communicate with my grandparents in Chiu Chow.”

Unable to learn Chiu Chow language comprehensively from his grandparents, Brian tried different ways to acquire this identity language. He joined a short-term Chiu Chow language course co-organized by the Hong Kong Chiu Chow Chamber of Commerce and Hong Kong Baptist University. During the ten lessons of the course, Brian has learnt about the phonetic, grammar and syntax of Chiu Chow. “I can learn the basic words of Chiu Chow for daily conversations in the course. Though it is not a long course and not many were taught, I can still have a chance to practice and now I can communicate with my grandparents in Chiu Chow most of the time.” said Brian. Apart from taking the course of Chiu Chow, Brian also choose to go to the Chiu Chow speaking church to worship in order to have more chances to practice and listen to Chiu Chow language. “I am not a fluent speaker of Chiu Chow, but it feels like more closer to Chiu Chow people when speaking in Chiu Chow instead of Cantonese in the church.” Added Brian, “But I won’t use Chiu Chow outside the environment of church, family and course. It is strange to let people who I first met to know my Chiu Chow identity.” Brian also claims that the course is no longer organizing now and he thinks he will keep on learning Chiu Chow language if he has a chance.

Analysis

Language Choice

According to the two interviewees Tim and Brian, Chiu Chow language was the only language used in the old days at the Chiu Chow churches. However, Chiu Chow language is no longer the dominant language in the Chiu Chow churches when Cantonese shared the same number of speakers as Chiu Chow in the churches nowadays.

In the above two cases, Tim and Brian being the young generation of Chiu Chow people, not only do they acquire Chiu Chow and Cantonese, but also English, Mandarin and even foreign languages. The time using Chiu Chow language has gradually shrunk when comparing to the early days. The shift in language choice might due to the level of education received. Both Tim and Brian have received the tertiary education, English and other foreign languages might become their major instructional language. On the other hand, not having much chance to use Chiu Chow language among their family members and friends, church is the only setting allows them to use Chiu Chow. However, both of them answered that they would only use Chiu Chow in church when leading a formal worship and talking with the seniors, they claimed that they would not use Chiu Chow with their friends with the same age in the church . This shows that there is a shift of language from Chiu Chow to Cantonese in the younger generations. This may also imply that the minority language Chiu Chow seems to be treated as respecting channel to the older generations while the dominant languages Cantonese and English are seen as the most common and modern languages used between the teenagers. The assumption can further be illustrated by the case of Brian, Brian wished to learn Chiu Chow with the primary reason of wanting to communicate with his grandparents. This has shown that young people using Chiu Chow to show respect to the older generations. The thought of using Chiu Chow in their daily life has never appeared in their mind.

Language and Identity

After interviewing these two young men, it is surprised to find that Chiu Chow people are having a strong sense of unity and strong feelings of identity. From the history of the Chiu Chow churches, the meaning of the Chiu Chow word “ga-gi-lan”「架己冷」has apparently arisen. Chiu Chow churches were set up in the beginning to link up Chiu Chow people in Hong Kong only. Speaking only in Chiu Chow language at the early days showed that the language has determined the identity of one person. There were no legal documentary proof of their Chiu Chow identities, but only the languages they spoke could tell. Speaking in Chiu Chow meaning that they were one of the them and standing on the same side.

Moreover, the Chiu Chow people in the church see their language as a precious gift as Tim said that they would write lyrics in Chiu Chow for their songs used in worship. With the same melody of the hymns, they have a different version of lyrics in Chiu Chow. This shows that they enjoy the difference with the others and having their own language in hymns contributed their sense of privilege of Chiu Chow identity. They build their own Chiu Chow culture with the development of Chiu Chow hymns and Chiu Chow speaking worship.

Furthermore, their sense of identity from the language can also be proved from the logo of the church. In one of the logo of the Chiu Chow church, three main elements of the church are being placed and emphasized, which are “Chiu Chow language”, “Baptist Church” and “Sha Tin”(church located region). These three main elements can also be found in the names of every Chiu Chow churches in Hong Kong. This might suggest that the Chiu Chow church put a lot of emphasis on the Chiu Chow language and aim to gather a bunch of Chiu Chow people to worship with the selling point of Chiu Chow language speaking. Unlike the findings in the Chiu Chow restaurants, Chiu Chow church do not attract people by abandoning the Chiu Chow language, but contradictly reserving the Chiu Chow language as the media. In the case of Brian, he was originally a christian and went to another Cantonese speaking church. However, as he was learning more about Chiu Chow language and growing up with a stronger sense of Chiu Chow identity, he choose to visit the Chiu Chow churches simply to practice speaking and listening in Chiu Chow. And more prominently, the value of worshiping in a Chiu Chow people owned and Chiu Chow speaking church, contributes Brian his own Chiu Chow identity.