Growing up I used to think I was Cantonese but sadly I'm not as I recently found out :( My father is a Teochew Hong Konger and my mother is Hoklo Singaporean. I can speak Cantonese but not Teochew. I had watch cantonese dramas, TV, movies all my life. I chat and write in Cantonese. I listen to Cantonese, English, Japanese music but never Teochew music. I had never watched anything in Teochew. I'm a truely Cantonized Teochew Hong Konger.
Cantonese have huge media success, with large international exposure and reconigtion on te world. They have their own official status in Hong Kong, Macau every since they migrated to those region from Guangzhou and parts of western Guangdong. They have their own movies, TV shows, dramas, music, cinema, video games. Their cultural and linguistic impact is extremely significant in Asia and during the 70's to 90's when it reached it's Golden age in Asia. While Hoklo Hakka was also one of indigenous groups of Hong Kong but they have literally 0% linguistic reconigtion.
If you speak Mandarin in other Asian countries, people would just assume you come a 3rd world China. If you speak Cantonese at least people will treat you with some distinctiveness, at least in most of Southeast Asia and Japan, Korea, Taiwan they would just assume you come from Hong Kong. If you a English speaking Singaporean people would just assume you're a Asian/Chinaman speaking in English. And if you speak other dialect, you're a isolated sub-group who no one knows about.
No matter how hard a Teochew, Hakka, Wu , Gan, Xiang, Jin speaker does.... they will never have the same privledges.
Cantonese have huge media success, with large international exposure and reconigtion on te world. They have their own official status in Hong Kong, Macau every since they migrated to those region from Guangzhou and parts of western Guangdong. They have their own movies, TV shows, dramas, music, cinema, video games. Their cultural and linguistic impact is extremely significant in Asia and during the 70's to 90's when it reached it's Golden age in Asia. While Hoklo Hakka was also one of indigenous groups of Hong Kong but they have literally 0% linguistic reconigtion.
If you speak Mandarin in other Asian countries, people would just assume you come a 3rd world China. If you speak Cantonese at least people will treat you with some distinctiveness, at least in most of Southeast Asia and Japan, Korea, Taiwan they would just assume you come from Hong Kong. If you a English speaking Singaporean people would just assume you're a Asian/Chinaman speaking in English. And if you speak other dialect, you're a isolated sub-group who no one knows about.
No matter how hard a Teochew, Hakka, Wu , Gan, Xiang, Jin speaker does.... they will never have the same privledges.
